OBAMA: PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD
By Victor Davis Hanson
AINA Assyrian International News Agency
April 15 2009
Given Obama’s performance on his recent trip, three developments were
quite astounding.
First, despite this fresh climate of atonement, there was a complete
absence of a single apology from any other foreign leader — odd for
the new shared spirit of multi-polarity and reciprocity.
Not a word came from Britain about colonialism. Nothing from Germany
on the Holocaust, or its trade with Iran. Not a peep from France
about Algeria or Vietnam.
Turkey was mum on the Armenian killings and its own tough anti-Kurdish
policies. Russia said nothing about the 30 million murdered by Stalin
— or its present assassinations abroad, much less its leveling of
Grozny or its destruction of Afghanistan. Nothing came from China
about the 70 million who perished under Mao or its present role
in subsidizing North Korean nukes — or its violation of global
copyright laws. We won’t hear anything in the "New Asian Hemisphere"
about Muslim Uighurs or Tibet.
Second, there was no other example of "He did it!" about supposedly
inept predecessors. Mr. Medvedev said nothing about Putin’s brutish
rule. Sarkozy and Merkel did not trash the shady Chirac or Gazprom’s
bought lobbyist Schroeder, and their role in harming the Atlantic
alliance. Gordon Brown was quiet about Tony Blair and Iraq. China
did not mention a reset button. The new Berlusconi did not trash the
old Berlusconi.
Third, we saw no concrete evidence of any help — or hope and change —
from any foreign leader. Zilch. There were expectations of American
concessions, but nothing new or helpful from anyone else.
Instead I think a number of astute foreign leaders — rivals, enemies,
and friends alike — have already drawn the following conclusions.
I. An Obama visit
A vast entourage will descend on your capital in campaign mode. Most
of your functionaries will wish to get a photo-op with the rock-star
president. The American president at some point will request a
"town-hall meeting," press conference, or open-air handshake session
with the crowd. All this is largely for domestic consumption back home,
and is designed to offer an antidote for the concessions or apologies
that follow. It is quite successful in generating temporary goodwill
toward the new Obama administration.
II. "I’m sorry."
Obama will apologize for almost anything one can imagine. First comes
the generic lamentation about Bush, the need for a reset button,
and America’s characteristic "arrogance." Then there are the "we
are at fault" lines on spec, tailor-made mea culpas for the country
in question.
If you are Turkish and Islamic, you get a threefer: the morally
equivalent reference to the American treatment of the Indians, the
pledge that we are not at war with Islam (forget that no president ever
said we were), and the reminder that we are not a Christian nation.
In Europe, you receive apologies for Bush, Iraq, and the financial
meltdown. Each leader gets a unique version of Obama’s somewhat
narcissistic "Them, not me" — either a strain of something like "Bush
did it" or "Every American except me is arrogant." We can console
ourselves only that Obama has not contextualized or apologized to
the Somali pirates — yet.
III. "You’re Right!"
Differences that your country has with the United States will be
resolved in your favor. Foreign leaders already sense that Obama’s
success hinges on his "hope and change" ecstasy back home — which
cannot for long sustain stories of difficult diplomacy and public
manifestations of international trouble and acrimony, of anything
really that suggests he is not mesmerizing the world in the manner
he did the American electorate.
Europe? Take your pick. No more combat troops to Afghanistan; an
international financial "czar"; no additional financial deficit
stimuli; no Guantanamo prisoners on European shores; American
acknowledgment of culpability for the financial crisis; no mention
of Europe’s own reckless lending, protectionism, or pre-September
2008 declining GDP. But goodwill aplenty.
China? It gets praise when it ridicules the dollar, but offers no
help on North Korea. Nothing new about trade violations. Hope is
expressed that they will still buy our growing debt.
Russia? Let us count the ways. No more missile defense for Eastern
Europe; no mention of Russia’s human-rights violations or its policy
of serial assassination abroad; de facto abandonment of advocacy
for former Soviet republics’ autonomy; Russia’s energy blackmail is
Russia’s business; no help with de-nuclearizing Iran.
Turkey? Yes, Europe must let you in the EU. The new Danish NATO
supreme commander must apologize for defending free speech — and,
as relish, hire some of your generals; continued American assurance
that we are not a Christian nation.
The Islamic World is not to be inconvenienced by any mention of
radical Islam, or 9/11, or of the endemic pathologies that nourished
al-Qaedism in the first place — such as gender apartheid, religious
intolerance, autocracy, statism, and tribalism. Instead there is
plenty of Bush-bashing, courting of Iran and Syria, caricatures of the
"war on terror," and talk of Iraq as a "mistake."
IV. "Them"
Then comes the "separation." Obama makes it clear to any host or
foreign leader that both he and his vision of America are strangely
exempt from America’s past, from Bush, and from our innately arrogant
nature. That is accomplished in a number of adroit ways. There is
evocation of his once-taboo middle name "Hussein" to win affection in
the Middle East, but also to suggest a more Third Worldish resonance
such as "I am one of you too who has grievances against ‘them.’ "
He is beginning to mention the novelty of his racial heritage a lot,
usually in the context that we are now in a new world of Obama, and
that his very presence is a rejection of the old and illiberal America.
That the veteran Colin Powell and Russian-speaking Condoleezza Rice ran
American foreign policy the last eight years, in a way unthinkable in
Europe, is never voiced. Suggesting that China would have an Uighur
foreign minister, that Saudi Arabia would have a Christian foreign
minister, that France would have an Algerian foreign minister, that
Germany would have a Turkish foreign minister, or that Russia would
have a Chechen foreign minister is as absurd as suggesting that a
Powell or Rice was never a big deal.
So what Obama leaves out about America is telling. He touches on
slavery, lack of voting rights for blacks in the South (although he
conflates this issue and implies to foreigners that African Americans
could not vote in the North as well), our past treatment of Native
Americans, and the dropping of the bomb against Japan.
These transgressions are rarely put in any historical context,
much less referenced as sins of mankind shared by all of his hosts
(the pedigree of murder, exploitation, and rapine of his foreign
interlocutors is quite stunning). We don’t hear many references to
the American Revolution, or the great tradition of American ingenuity
embodied by Bell, Edison, or the Wright brothers.
We hear nothing about our Gettysburg, or our entry into World War
I. Iwo Jima and the Bulge are never alluded to. Drawing the line
in Korea and forcing the end of the Soviet monstrosity are taboo
subjects. That we pledged the life of New York for Berlin in the Cold
War is unknown. Liberating Afghanistan and Iraq from the diabolical
Taliban and Saddam Hussein is left unsaid. The Civil Rights movement,
the Great Society, affirmative action, and present billion-dollar
foreign-aid programs apparently never existed. Millions of Africans
have been saved by George Bush’s efforts at extending life-saving
medicines to AIDS patients — but again, this is never referenced.
V. What’s Next?
At present the world is watching, probing, and digesting the Obama
presidency. But it has already concluded that Obama is nourished
by applause and will work to maintain it — not merely for personal
gratification, but because he realizes that loud public endorsement is
essential to his perpetual candidacy, given its absence of experience
and sagacity.
Those abroad are also reassured that the American media, so heavily
invested in hope and change, will do almost anything to transmogrify
American embarrassments into Obama successes. Meanwhile, the contours
of the new world order are clear. Iraq’s democrats are snubbed;
Iran’s cutthroats are courted. A Saudi royal receives a bow; the
British queen, a presumptuous squeeze — while her prime minister
receives unplayable DVDs.
Pakistan released Dr. Khan and wants us to idle our Predators. Iran
is adding to its centrifuges. North Korea will ready ever-more
missiles. Syria lectures on the putative peace it is begged to
participate in. The former Soviet republics will fall back into
line, closing American supply bases or bracing for the next Putin
push. Israel gets a Charles Freeman nomination; Gaza a billion
U.S. dollars in aid.
The odious governments of Cuba, Libya, and Syria quite logically
have now expressed warmth of some sort for Obama and expect
similar treatment in return. Russia fears little challenge to the
reestablishment of its 19th-century influence. Pirates in Somalia,
though slightly fewer in number today, likely have little to fear
going forward.
Europe had better prepare for its own defense. So should Japan. They
may get more expressions of outrage when crises loom, more calls
for U.N. action, but not much more than that. Expect a world of more
nukes, not fewer — in direct proportion to Obama’s calls for their
entire elimination.
In short, we have a return of Jimmy Carter’s postnational idealism,
but this time with the charismatic face of a Ronald Reagan. For 40
years we have had well-meaning moral equivalence, utopian pacifism,
and multiculturalism taught in our schools, and we are now learning
that all that was not just therapy, but has insidiously become our
national gospel. The world is hearing a deeply pessimistic view of
what America was and is — now offered in mellifluous cadences by
a messianic president who not so long ago in more unguarded moments
called for more oppression studies and reparations.
President Obama will get his much-needed praise and adulation abroad,
and Americans will finally be somwhat admired for a while. And
thereafter, there will be real hell to pay — either abject
U.S. appeasement as the world heats up, or some sort of frantic
eleventh-hour hyper-response to restore stability and lost deterrence.
Just watch.