Are Obama's Foreign Policy Positions "Mainstream?"

Washington Post reporter Karen DeYoung writes today characterizing Obama's foreign policy positions as "mainstream." Are they?

Update: And is Obama ready to lead in a foreign policy crisis? (Heh)



________________________________________________________

Please tell me if any of these Obama foreign policy pronouncements or positions sound mainstream to you:

1. Meet personally and without preconditions with the leaders of our major enemies, including Iran and North Korea. Presumably those countries will be recharacterized as the Axis of Lunch Guests.

One wonders what JFK would think of how Obama is using his words? JFK didn't exactly meet with Castro to work things out in the worker's paradise. The last world leader to meet without preconditions with his opposite number under similar facts as we face today was Britain's Neville Chamberlin. And as I recall, that didn't work out too well. Nobody has called Chamberlin's policy "mainstream" since the days of the Anshluss.

Update: This is hilarious. The Conservative Cat has a true test for Obama to prove his ability to sway America’s enemies with his rhetorical and negotiating skills.

2. Unilaterally withdraw from NAFTA, a treaty with our major trading partners, unless they agree to renegotiate it (or so he publicly maintains). This is true cowboy diplomacy of a style that the left keeps telling us is a Bushian anomaly.

3. Withdraw our forces in the middle of a war we are winning in Iraq and in which we are fighting against our two major Mid-East threats, al Qaeda and Iran. The last time this was mainstream was with the Copperheads during the Civil War.

4. To take the use of atomic weapons off the table as a viable option for our defense, something not done by other Presidents and, indeed, something very much at odds with the recommendations of our former NATO leadership.

5. Unilaterally reduce our stock pile of nuclear weapons. Obama believes that we need to "reduce our own nuclear stockpiles" in order to have the moral authority "to pressure other countries to give up nuclear technology." I am scratching my head trying to come up with the last time the sophmoric doctrine of moral relativism was relied on as the philosophy to drive our "mainstream" foreign policy.

6. Refuses to vote for any bill that could be seen as authorizing the President to use or threaten to use force against Iran. Teddy Roosevelt said that in matters of foreign policy, we should walk softly and carry a big stick. Obama would have us on our knees with only a toothpick wrapped in celophane kept in a zippered pocket. That hasn't been mainstream since Jimmy Carter tried that technique while our embassy personnel were being held hostage for 444 days - by Iran.

7. Violate the territorial integrity of a nuclear armed ally, Pakistan, if he has "actionable intelligence" about terrorists. In all fairness, it is unclear whether Obama is talking about sending in the Marines or the Predator drones. That said, announcing his intention as official policy could destabilize the Pakistani government - something that most President's would find counterproductive in defining their "mainstream" foreign policy.

8. He would grant a right of habeus corpus to terrorists and foreign fighters. This would amount to a sea change in U.S. policy. It would turn the war on terror into the criminal investigation of terror. Lincoln suspended habeaus corpus for American citizens during the Civil War. Obama is going to extend it to people captured on foreign battlefields and who are not Americans.

9. And who knows, perhaps the views of Obama's foreign policy team - Zbigniew Brzezinski, Robert Malley, Samantha Power and Susan Rice - might not be too "moderate" either.

After considering the above, I can only wonder how far to the left must be Ms. DeYoung's own views of an appropriate foreign policy for the U.S. if she can characterize Mr. Obama foreign policy proposals as "moderate." That's Kos and George Soros territory. It most certainly would not be considered "mainstream" by "moderate republicans."

Update: Speak of the devil. You will note in Par. 9 above that Susan Rice is part of Obama's foreign policy team. I have to give her very high marks for being candid about Obama's preparedness to run our country's foreign policy in times of crisis, when the "phone rings at 3 a.m.:"



I rest my case.

Update: No, I don't rest yet. New evidence just in -- if you haven't seen this, follow the links to this brutal BBC interview with another of Obama's foreign policy team, Samantha Power (former member, after the Hillary is a "monster" comment). Its chock full of NAFTA-esque moments as Powers tells the Beeb that Obama has no hard plans to pull out of Iraq once he's elected.