Natalie Gonnella
In the latest edition of The New Yorker, Ryan Lizza provides a very detailed overview of President Obama's reluctant foreign policy development, and his apparent preference for "leading from behind."
Entitled The Consequentialist: How the Arab Spring remade Obama’s foreign policy, Lizza concluded that:
Obama may be moving toward something resembling a doctrine. One of his advisers described the President’s actions in Libya as “leading from behind.” That’s not a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic Convention, but it does accurately describe the balance that Obama now seems to be finding. It’s a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world. Pursuing our interests and spreading our ideals thus requires stealth and modesty as well as military strength. “It’s so at odds with the John Wayne expectation for what America is in the world,” the adviser said. “But it’s necessary for shepherding us through this phase.”
Not surprisingly, considering both the advisor's poor word choice and the President's penchant for timid, apologetic, and often indecisive (in)action on a number of foreign policy concerns (most recently evident in the White House's feeble response to the ongoing atrocities in Syria), Lizza's piece has been a popular topic among conservatives.
From weekly columns to political blogs, here's a quick look at what a few of them had to say:
Bill Kristol in The Weekly Standard commented that:
Thank you, Mr. or Ms. Anonymous Obama adviser speaking on background to Ryan Lizza. Thank you for so boldly and visibly injecting into our politics the phrase “leading from behind.” Thank you for associating it with your boss. Thanks for confirming that our current president believes his task is to accommodate American decline. Thanks for reminding us how high a priority he places on appeasing those who revile us. And thanks for explaining that our Leader from Behind sees his role as “shepherding us through this phase” of appeasement and decline...How do you defeat a leader from behind? With a leader from the front. All the Republicans have to do is nominate a real leader: a workhorse not a show horse; a steady hand not a flip-flopper; a profile in courage not in cleverness; a competent man or woman with strength and confidence in defense of liberty at home and abroad. Surely this isn’t too much to ask?
Kori Schake via ForeignPolicy.com's Shadow Government blog wrote:
What makes the article so funny is the pompous self-regard of the administration officials and the complete lack of appreciation for how woefully inadequate their performance has been in meeting these challenges. They are "not cursed with self-awareness," to quote Annie Savoy from the movieBull Durham. Secretary of State Clinton compares herself as a collegiate Vietnam war protester to the young Egyptians who brought down the Mubarak government. Both Tom Donilon and Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes explain the importance of reducing involvement in the middle east because our strategic interests lie in Asia ... as the administration engaged in combat operations in Libya. A presidential memo is cited as wisely anticipating the middle eastern revolutions, except that the memo calls for tailored country by country programs that the administration's policies clearly did not have. The author even unwittingly adds to the humor, saying "Obama's instinct was to try to have it both ways."
In his column in the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer commented:
To be precise, leading from behind is a style, not a doctrine. Doctrines involve ideas, but since there are no discernible ones that make sense of Obama foreign policy — Lizza’s painstaking two-year chronicle shows it to be as ad hoc, erratic and confused as it appears — this will have to do. And it surely is an accurate description, from President Obama’s shocking passivity during Iran’s 2009 Green Revolution to his dithering on Libya, acting at the very last moment, then handing off to a bickering coalition, yielding the current bloody stalemate. It’s been a foreign policy of hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the (fictional) “international community” to do what only America can...Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it to a doctrine. The president is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned.
Michael Barone in his column in the Washington Examiner said:
Lizza gives a detailed account of how Obama and his advisers have been putting chips on black and red in Egypt and Libya over the past two months. And he provides a revealing summing up. "One of his advisers described the president's actions in Libya as 'leading from behind,'" he writes. "It's a different definition of leadership than America is known for, and it comes from two unspoken beliefs: that the relative power of the U.S. is declining, as rivals like China rise, and that the U.S. is reviled in many parts of the world." "That's not," Lizza, who often writes on domestic politics, interjects, "a slogan designed for signs at the 2012 Democratic National Convention." No, it's not. But it's one you may hear about from Republicans.
and commenting via his NRO blog, The Agenda, Reihan Salam said of the article:
One of the reasons I strongly advocate fiscal consolidation and public sector reform is that I believe it will help give the United States room to maneuver as the global political environment shifts. So in a sense I think that the flawed Obama foreign policy derives from the flawed Obama domestic policy...On one level, Lizza’s article makes me think that conservatives should back a presidential candidate with unimpeachable foreign policy credentials. It’s not clear that there is such a non-fringe candidate, however, and so we’re left with the hope that good domestic policy instincts will translate into good foreign policy instincts.
Lizza's full piece, which is currently ranked as the magazine's most popular, is available to read here.
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