5/6/2023 0 Comments Day of defeat source realism![]() 1 rule: “As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be. In his great book Rules for Radicals (subtitled “A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals”), Alinsky stressed this as his No. Alinsky was a Machiavelli of urban protest movements. ![]() But even more than usual, they had no idea what they were talking about. (Alinsky died in 1972, more than a decade before Obama moved to Chicago, but his thinking permeated the city’s activist groups.) Right-wing critics, especially at Fox News, have long latched onto this in their attempt to paint Obama as a dangerous lefty. Much can be explained by what might seem the most unlikely source-his truly seminal years as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an outfit modeled explicitly on the principles of Saul Alinsky. Perhaps more than any president since Dwight Eisenhower, Obama defines the national interest narrowly and acts accordingly. Still more intriguing is how a man with a passion for righting domestic wrongs like racism and inequality can seem so cold-blooded in his dealings abroad. It’s curious that a president so previously inexperienced in foreign policy would emerge, so early in his term, with any worldview, much less a hard-nosed one. When the Russians displayed a deep aversion to still more cuts, when U.S.-Russian relations took a dip across the board with Vladimir Putin’s return as president and when other crises overwhelmed Obama’s agenda, the talk of a nuclear-free world disappeared. He negotiated a truly significant arms-reduction treaty with the Russians, but to win ratification in the Senate, he boosted the budget for nuclear research and development. There isn’t a trace of such sentiments in his dealings with those parts of the world-Afghanistan, China, much of the Arab world-where the theme had particular resonance other factors, such as security and economics, clearly prevailed.Įven when it came to Obama’s own handful of lofty sentiments, notably his call in 2009 for the abolition of nuclear weapons, he stopped pushing when the resistance proved immovable. Obama nicknamed them “the grim Irishmen,” but he almost always agreed with them and took their advice.Įarly in Obama’s first term, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered a speech laying out an agenda of people-to-people relations, especially women’s rights, the president paid it lip service in some of his own speeches, but he never followed through with action. But the foreign policy appointees who had by far the greatest influence in Obama’s White House, the trio with whom he spoke at length every day-National Security Adviser Thomas Donilon Donilon’s deputy, Denis McDonough and John Brennan, counterterrorism adviser-were thoroughgoing realists. ambassador and Power a National Security Council aide. When Susan Rice and Samantha Power-ultimate idealists-emerged as key players on his campaign staff and transition team, some saw their presence as a sign of Obama’s idealist leanings. In fact, his deepest failures have occurred when he has veered off his path.Īt first, Obama was mistaken for the opposite of a realist. And in following this course, he has been much more successful than his critics allow. Bush and his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft-ultimate realists-many thought Obama was just taking a whack at his predecessor, H.W.’s son. During his first presidential campaign, when he said he had “ enormous sympathy” for the foreign policy of President George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy, in part because he sees the bloody, futile legacy it left in the sands of Iraq-but also because it’s just not his style. ![]() He seems unmoved by the triumphalism that animated George W. Obama’s belief in American values isn’t entirely rhetorical he will sometimes place ideals above interests, though rarely when the two collide. ![]() relationships in East Asia, embracing authoritarian regimes in Myanmar and Vietnam to promote trade and check an expansive China. With almost clinical detachment, he has reassessed U.S. To ease America’s way out of Afghanistan, he has cozied up to Central Asian autocrats and tolerated Pakistan’s duplicity. He suffers no ideological hang-ups about negotiating with dreadful rulers or sworn enemies, such as Iran, for the sake of national-security interests. He rarely hectors foreign leaders about their internal affairs, at least in public. He has ended the regime-changing wars he inherited, and done much to avoid new ones. But his actions reveal an aversion to missionary zeal. Like all postwar presidents, Obama speaks in hallowed terms about America’s global mission.
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