Posted on 09/25/2009 7:05:33 PM PDT by SpareChange
UN-Doing America: My Two Cents on Faith-Based Diplomacy
By David J. Aland 25 September 2009
It has been said that diplomacy is the art of letting someone have it your way, or, as Will Rogers put it, “the art of saying ‘nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.” Americans have long been accused of having little diplomatic sophistication, but, as a European friend once put it: “It’s part of the charm.” Lately, it appears our President is trying to foist charm off as sophistication, and it’s failing.
President Obama’s speech this week to the General Assembly of the United Nations was long on charm, short on sophistication, and, in its own way, as inexplicable as the loony ramblings of “Crazy Mo” Gaddafi. Labeled self-referential and “Wilsonian in its naïveté” by critics, it was an attempt to throw a stirring revival sermon to a political body notable principally for cynical hypocrisy and serial self-deception. Instead, he demonstrated to both allies and adversaries alike that the United States wants to surrender any remaining credibility on the international stage. Moreover, he also demonstrated to Americans how futile reliance on bodies like the UN is where America’s interests are concerned.
American foreign policy is now an oxymoron where our friends are cast aside and competitors are accommodated. Forget the early stumbles – the poorly-chosen gifts and verbal gaffes – the US has become serious about unserious diplomacy. Iran and North Korea get a pass for truculence, while Israel and the UK are snubbed. Obama has sided with a budding dictator in Honduras rather than the Honduran people, who ousted the man strictly in conformance with their own Constitution. The US unilaterally walked away from a security deal years in the making with the Czechs and Poles, a diplomatic dump-job in which Hillary “I am the Secretary of State” was conspicuously absent. Czar Vlad-the-Putin must have preened to see the US have it his way as neatly as Libya gamed Scotland.
The President tried to tell the General Assembly that there was a “new” America in the house, but that came as no surprise to anyone. Iran has long known that this Administration would “go UN” and chirp feebly while Tehran builds nuclear weapons. On the heels of Amadinejad’s symbolically boycotted speech, it was announced that not only did Iran have a second nuclear facility, but this President knew about it all along, making his reluctance to substantively deter Iran even more amazing. Small wonder Brazil now covets nuclear weapons, just the kind of excuse Hugo Chavez needs to start building his own.
Instead of addressing critical challenges to international stability, the President expanded his domestic agenda on financial market regulation to a global scale. While fathering an astonishing expansion in US debt, the President appears to have forgotten that securing that debt depends on confidence in US markets and security. When Cuba, Venezuela, and Libya are the most complimentary speakers to America, something is amiss, and what is amiss is the inability of this Administration to project the confidence and muscle that are “part of the charm” of American diplomacy. It comes as no surprise, then, that the G-20 discussion is on what currency will replace the dollar in the international marketplace, and whether anyone will buy American bonds anymore.
By now, our President must have learned that the glossy rhetoric of campaigning has little place in the hard work of governing, although his performance in the health-care debate hardly indicates so. Now, it seems, he is trying the same rhetorical noise instead of actual diplomacy. With a SecState who seems absent, and an allergy to showing American spine in the face of provocation, the US flirts with becoming no better at effective diplomacy than the UN.
Will Durant once said that half the art of diplomacy was “to say nothing, especially when speaking.” This President has excelled so far, but that is by no means enough. It has been widely speculated that the failure of the US to deter Saddam Hussein in the 80s led the Iraqi dictator to believe it was OK to invade Kuwait, clearly an unintended message. What other unintended messages is the US now sending to Iran, North Korea, Libya, Russia, and China?
It has also been said that diplomacy is learning to think twice before saying nothing, but that’s not what’s wrong with American foreign policy these days. It’s the speaking twice without thinking, and still saying nothing that’s going to get us into trouble.
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David J. Aland is a retired Naval Officer with a graduate degree in National Security Affairs from the U. S. Naval War College.
Geez... this guy is “Prez gone wild”... pinning some hopes on the Santa Ana case for the BC... if God deigns to bless us.... I know.. we don’t deserve HIS favor (I heard that from our President).
The string pullers are getting the Puppet Of The United States tangled in his own words. They might have to tie both ends of his forked tongue down.
Great article David J. Aland. Thanks.
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