New President, New Foreign Policy

By Cernig

Investigative journalist Gareth Porter, a smart guy and a friend of mine, gave an interview to "The Real News" on Sunday on the topic of foreign policy directions under a McCain or Obama presidency. Gareth's opinion is that, contra McKinney and Nader, there is a qualitative difference between McCain, a died-in-the-wool neoconservative, and Obama's more pragmatic approach to American superpowerdom - but that even Obama wouldn't make a clear break with the past 50 years of American power projection, instead repurposing it away from the Bush Years with less violently militaristic expressions. So that although both would to a continuation of one or other of the Bush terms, just as Bush followed the last 50 years, McCain would hyper-extend the first term's Cheney-esque bellicosity while Obama would emphasise and amplify the pragmatic policies of the likes of SecDef Bob Gates.

One of the major points Gareth makes in his interview is that, from everything McCain has said about Iraq during his campaign, it isn't impossible to believe McCain would keep the occupation of Iraq going even over the wishes of the Iraqi people and government, perhaps even arranging a coup to unseat Prime Minister Maliki. I think it would certainly be interesting to see how he would respond if asked about this outright by the establishment press.

Obama however, while he'd be likely to hurry withdrawal even beyond the Maliki-approved timetable if he thought it could be done, is just as inextricably committed to staying in Afghanistan and to using military force as the main effort there as McCain is - perhaps even more so when you consider what he has said about the Pakistan border area. McCain, as a paid up neocon, would doubtless be saying "faster please" on war with Iran, which Obama seems to realize would be a disaster.

Comments

[Russ Wellen]

It will be a whole new ballgame in Afghanistan and Pakistan if the Saudis actually broker some kind of peace between Afghanistan and the Taliban.

Between that and withdrawing most of our forces from Iraq, Obama (if he wins) could ride this peaceful trend and make nice with Iran, as well as concentrate on the domestic front and the economy.

[zak822]

I feel your concern about Sen. Obama and Afghanistan.

I have to say that first, I hope he doesn't believe what he's been saying. And second, if he didn't take this posture, he'd have been in the evening news every night, tagged with the phrase "soft on defense". I hope his affection for staying in Afghanistan is a tactic, not something he really intends to do.

Worse, I hope he's not harboring dreams of being the president who got bin Laden.