So, the logical move for the "under-the-table" Obama would be to cooperate with Putin on a peace initiative that shelves the "Assad must go" rhetoric in favor of practical cooperation with Russia in arranging a political power-sharing government between Assad and the "moderate" Sunni politicians who have lived off U.S. largesse and thus are susceptible to American pressure.
Even more importantly, Obama could finally get serious about clamping down on Saudi, Qatari, Turkish and Israeli support for the extremist Syrian rebels, finally putting some teeth into the theory that support for terrorism is indistinguishable from acts of terrorism.
But the "above-the-table" Obama seems frightened by the domestic political repercussions if he were to make such rational moves, so he continues to rant about Assad as "a brutal, ruthless dictator" who "drops barrel bombs to massacre innocent children" -- as if these crude bombs are some uniquely diabolical weapons and as if Assad were targeting "innocent children" when there is no evidence of that. Such crude propaganda is then used to justify Obama repeating his dubious mantra: "Assad must go!"
Obama also fears neocon Sen. John McCain, the former Republican presidential nominee whom Obama defeated in 2008 but who is still invited onto all the U.S. news shows to berate the President for not escalating the Syrian, Ukrainian and other conflicts around the globe.
Plus, Obama sees himself surrounded by his own neocons like Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and liberal interventionists like Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power. He must realize that such ideologues won't shake their commitment to "regime change" in Syria.
Fear of 'Softness'
Clearly, Obama is to blame for his administration's appointees, whether it was the misguided "Team of Rivals" at the start of his presidency or the current mix of mostly non-entities and neocon-lites in his second term. But the low quality of these officials is also a comment on how thin the Democratic foreign-policy bench is after three-and-a-half decades of cowering before Republican and media accusations about the Democrats showing "un-American" softness.
Today's Democrats are not able to formulate a foreign policy argument that separates enlightened American interests from imperialist adventures. They generally accept the neocon narratives about "bad guys" and then either acquiesce to another "regime change" operation, as Obama and others did in Libya in 2011, or they drag their heels to slow or obstruct the most dangerous schemes.
The vast majority of the Democratic foreign policy "experts" who have survived politically either have become "me-too" echoes of the Republican neocons (the likes of Hillary Clinton) or have adopted a militant "humanitarianism" favoring either coups or war in the name of "human rights" (the likes of Samantha Power).
You do have some establishment Democrats, such as Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry, who probably know better but have grown accustomed to accommodating to neocon and liberal-hawk pressures. Biden and Kerry both overrode their better judgments to vote for the Iraq War in 2002 and they have echoed the neocon tough talk about Syria and Ukraine.
But Biden and Kerry probably represent the most realistic of the mainstream Democrats, the most in line with the "under-the-table" Obama. Biden opposed the pointless but bloody Afghan War "surge" in 2009; he also battled Secretary of State Clinton over her desires for military intervention in Libya and Syria. For his part, Kerry as Secretary of State executed Obama's negotiation of a nuclear deal with Iran, an approach that Clinton had resisted.
Still, the foreign policy realism of Biden and Kerry is spotty at best. Both have run with the neocon/liberal-hawk pack in escalating tensions with Russia over Ukraine, and Kerry rushed to dangerous judgments blaming Assad for the Aug. 21, 2013 sarin gas attack outside Damascus and Russia for the July 17, 2014 shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine.
Not even a progressive like Sen. Bernie Sanders articulates sensible alternatives to the neocon/liberal-hawk narratives, though he did vote against the Iraq War and generally has favored less aggressive actions overseas. Still, no one of prominence in the Democratic Party has charted a comprehensive strategy for a non-imperialist U.S. foreign policy, an incoherence that helps explain the contradictory aspects of Obama's approach to the world.
Whereas the dominant ideology among the Republicans remains neoconservatism, the primary approach of the Democrats is "liberal interventionism," but there really isn't much difference between the two in practical terms. Indeed, arch-neocon Robert Kagan has said he is comfortable calling himself a "liberal interventionist."
Loving "Stratcom"
Both neocons and liberal interventionists favor "regime change" strategies as a principal feature of U.S. foreign policy, whether through "color revolutions" or "responsibility to protect" military invasions. They also rely heavily on "strategic communications" or "Stratcom," a blend of psy-ops, propaganda and P.R., to bring both the American people and the global public into line.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
2
1
