He has 300 foreign policy advisers and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee is his vice presidential nominee. And yet Barack Obama's foreign policy is still all twists and turns, forever adapting to every change in the political circumstances.
Terrorist surveillance? Obama was against this year's revision to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, until he voted for it.
Negotiations with rogue dictators? In 2007 Obama pledged to meet with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his friends "without precondition." But that was so last year. These days, Obama hedges. He says "preparations" will take place before any summits, and that those summits will occur only if he thinks they will further American national security interests.
The surge? Obama was a vocal opponent. He predicted that sending reinforcements to Iraq and changing strategy would not just fail but indeed make things worse. Didn't happen, of course. And now the other day Obama said the surge has succeeded beyond "our wildest expectations." His expectations, certainly.
On issue after issue, Obama's small army of wonks has not been able to keep him from stumbling. His instinct, of course, is to stake out positions on the left. But reality intrudes. It forces Obama to adjust. A talented writer, he is keenly aware of subtle distinctions in word choice and emphasis, and the shifts in position are sometimes difficult to detect. But they are there nonetheless. And so often Obama follows in the footsteps of his true foreign policy mentor: John McCain.
As the story goes, shortly after
coming to Washington, Obama sought out McCain to tell him that he was a role model. The two were friends until a dispute over an ethics bill soured the relationship. But Obama still took, and continues to take, foreign policy cues from McCain. On many issues there is little difference between the two candidates. They both oppose torture and want to shut down the terrorist prison at Guantánamo Bay. They both support expanding the Army and Marine Corps. They both support a cap-and-trade scheme to limit carbon emissions. Both promise to reach the quixotic goal of "energy independence." Both want to send more troops to Afghanistan, recognize the sovereignty of Kosovo, and support NATO expansion. Both repeatedly say that America is an exceptional country. Neither man forswears the use of force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. And both say unilateral military action is always an option.
Where there is divergence, it doesn't last long. In December 2006 the Senate debated a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and India. That agreement--the product of long, intense negotiations between the Bush administration and the Indian government--will cement a new strategic alliance between our two countries. Yet Obama voted for a series of so-called "killer" amendments that would have made the agreement dead on arrival. His side lost. A bipartisan group of senators, including Biden and McCain, were able to defeat the amendments Obama supported. And once those amendments had been defeated, something curious happened. Obama completely changed his tune. He became a vocal supporter of the deal (which must be approved by Congress once more before taking effect).
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