Niall Ferguson: How Obama screwed up

[SFG75]

A thoughtful read concerning the recent events in Egypt and how Obama could have handled things better.

“The statesman can only wait and listen until he hears the footsteps of God resounding through events; then he must jump up and grasp the hem of His coat, that is all.” Thus Otto von Bismarck, the great Prussian statesman who united Germany and thereby reshaped Europe’s balance of power nearly a century and a half ago.

Last week, for the second time in his presidency, Barack Obama heard those footsteps, jumped up to grasp a historic opportunity … and missed it completely.

 

[Peder]

Well, I guess one pays one's money and takes one's choice. The NYT always offers about half a dozen opinionators spread across both sides of the fence, or are you suggesting they are not thoughtful. And I certainly am not going to mention networks XXX and YYY.

 

[SFG75]

What I like about it is that Ferguson puts forth a decent argument, other than the fact that the president is a socialist from Kenya. Does the Obama administration have a "worldview" or prism through which they view the world? I don't know, but then again, we may be in a time where such a view has yet to fully develop. I think the same argument could've been made when the Cold War ended under the presidency of H.W. Bush.

 

[Peder]

Yes SFG, you are probably right about the end of the Cold War, as also upon the occasion of 9-11. Sudden shifts in the news certainly bring out a wide range of opinions on how to react or proceed. Everyone has an opinion it seems.

Re the current case, I myself am not convinced that our having an integrated view for how to engage with the rest of the world, or even just Egypt, is necessarily viewed with favor by the other nations or factions who are the subject of our worldview. Everyone abroad also seems to have an opinion about what the US should do and how we should do it. And they are very vociferous opinions at that.

In the US, the difference between "internationalist" vs "isolationist" approaches goes back many years -- my whole lifetime, in fact -- and opinions about cudda-shudda have always been dime-a-dozen as far as I can remember. Including the one in Newsweek, IMO; hence my comment.

"Success has a thousand fathers; failure dies an orphan, alone and reviled." or words to that effect.

Cheers. Especially if you turn out to be on the winning side.
:flowers:

 

[SFG75]

When Vice President Biden was chosen, it was rumored that he would provide some foreign policy heft. Add to the mix Hillary Clinton at State, and you should have a core of people who know what is going on and who understand the realpolitik of the world and how it operates. Ferguson and others rightly blame the president's NSC, but even that doesn't provide a full explanation that excuses blame from Obama. When a baseball team fails to perform, the manager can't pass the buck onto the players that he himself, has chosen.

Grand strategy is all about the necessity of choice. Today, it means choosing between a daunting list of objectives: to resist the spread of radical Islam, to limit Iran’s ambition to become dominant in the Middle East, to contain the rise of China as an economic rival, to guard against a Russian “reconquista” of Eastern Europe—and so on. The defining characteristic of Obama’s foreign policy has been not just a failure to prioritize, but also a failure to recognize the need to do so. A succession of speeches saying, in essence, “I am not George W. Bush” is no substitute for a strategy.

Ouch.:whistling: