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I’m eight months older than President Barack Obama, so we fall into the same generation. Of course, the similarities end there, including his ascent to a slightly higher administrative level than I will ever reach. Still, we share some things in common because we gained an awareness of the world around the same time, in the late 1970s, and began to reach some sort of political maturity during the Reagan years. I imagine we voted the same way (and like me, he probably asked whether he’d ever help elect a Democrat to the White House), we cringed at preemptive foreign policy (having been taught that Vietnam was such a disastrous error) but questioned whether Carter-style human rights diplomacy worked (and learned that idealistic enthusiasm was simply uncool), and we weighed the pros and cons of globalization and the rise of China. Like others, we sighed in uneasy relief as the hostages came home from Iran, backed divestment in South Africa, yawned as communism collapsed, and danced the night away when Bill Clinton was elected. But I’m not entirely happy with him because he hasn’t heeded some lessons of our past. I give him a B (yes, both of us are professors) as a grade for his first-year’s agenda abroad.
That mark implies a faith that the President has room for improvement. His Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech was superb – measured, confessional, realistic – sort of Carteresque in its humility (tone and substance learned from the doldrums of the 1970s). In his diplomacy, which involves actual talking, I detect a reaction against Reagan’s peace-through-strength position of the 1980s. But like the Great Communicator, Obama is eloquent and sparks the imagination with his speeches. Unlike Reagan, Clinton, and Bush II – but more like Bush I – he thinks in the long-term with little interest in grandstanding. I loved Bill, but he had a slightly unsettling ability to say exactly what I wanted to hear. Would Barack, for instance, have campaigned like Clinton so tirelessly over seven years for the mantra of globalization, only to temper his enthusiasm before going out of office? I doubt President Obama will stray far from his principles. He speaks straight, and gravely – maybe we both learned to be sober after the hostage crisis, the Marines’ massacre in Lebanon, and the Soviet disaster in Afghanistan (not to mention the heartbreak for the athletes who were victims of the politicization of the 1980 Olympics).
Like Carter, Obama entered office with a goal of hopping American diplomacy out of the ruts of the past, in ways symbolic and real. He and I both remember Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter’s walk down Pennsylvania Avenue after the swearing in ceremony, and so I was riveted watching Michelle and him dance at inaugural balls – a young, African-American couple in the White House!! But there were also the harsh realities as he entered office. Like Carter (and Reagan), he faced at least a perception of weakened American power around the globe, of a public embittered by mistakes, of the frustrating fact that the United States simply could not prevail unilaterally against its enemies. Obama, like Carter (and unlike Reagan and Bush II), really believes in negotiation, multilateralism, and a turn from adventurism. As late Baby Boomers, we had both learned that this was the wisest course, particularly because war so tore at the fabric of not only the global community but of American society itself. We learned the beauty of diplomacy, too, from Reagan, who did not win the Cold War alone. He came on tough at the beginning, but he and Mikhail Gorbachev brokered Détente II.
Now Obama has turned to the military for answers in Afghanistan. Had he forsaken our generation by ignoring the specter of Vietnam (and Iraq), believing that American wars can now be fought without a draft and, thus, without a big public debate? Does he hold to a faith that, yes indeed, the United States can succeed anywhere it sets its mind to win? Had he not learned anything from the anxious years of our mutual upbringing? Above all, did domestic politics drive his foreign policy?
I fear affirmative responses to these questions. Obama understands that foreign policy in America is domestic politics. Carter succumbed to the political by seeming weak, as did LBJ who tried to be both negotiator and strong man. Reagan, meanwhile, thrived at home by projecting unilateral strength. Yet if running foreign policy by the election timetable is the lesson, then Barack has miscalculated. He has made a mistake regarding Afghanistan, by forging ahead with a plan that simply stalls our progress out of a country that is a hopeless case. Sure, we can kill Al Qaeda operatives and even (temporarily) subdue the Taliban. But they will all be there after we leave, or pop up somewhere else. We haven’t seen the last of terrorists like the underwear bomber or hits on U.S. compounds overseas (or of craziness at home, as at Fort Hood). The cause is strategically hopeless even though it could be a winner at the polls, though I doubt even that. He’s not going in with enough strength in Afghanistan to satisfy Republicans and Blue-Dog Democrats, and he’s angering moderate liberals and, certainly, the Left (although they have few other options but to vote for him unless they seek a replay of Gore v. Nader/Bush 2000).
Why not just pull out our ground forces? From our generation’s standpoint, we need an imaginative vision for our post-9/11 foreign policy. What we need is Reaganesque simplicity, without political guesswork. Reagan used a meat-cleaver approach to foreign policy, explaining issues in terms of good or “evil empires.” Obama talks about the complexities of Afghanistan and fighting terrorism, but he need not complicate matters. There is a simple formula, one based on our successes of the past – not Vietnam or Iraq – but on economic aid and the establishment of global institutions that help in development and prosperity. We’re Americans, after all, and we do well by innovating, organizing, and making money. Reconstruction is our strength, and the world knows us for our long-term commitment to helping others live better, just as we do at home. Obama risks that legacy by continuing to focus on the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the short-run (and the Republicans, of course, don’t help matters by opposing his every move), and getting mixed up in the byzantine internal tribal politics of an area in which the sage British and powerful Soviets failed. Let’s play to our strength – a Marshall Plan for the Middle East – and call home the military from Afghanistan.
Our generation realized that America was not omniscient but it was a force for good if it abandoned the glitz of aggression, daring, big talk, and political positioning, and opted for the long-term, quieter diplomacy of aid, trade, investment, and cooperation with others overseas. We’ve had successes, for instance, in our aid and health programs abroad, ending the Cold War without gloating to the Soviets, and encouraging democracy in South America. Obama understands this, as did the Nobel Peace prize committee, but he needs to show it by extricating us now from another quagmire or, at best, a wasted effort. He need not panic about the Middle East and terrorism or cynically capitalize on insecurities, which worked domestically in 2004 but failed at the polls in 2008. Let him talk tough, like Reagan, but recognize the realities that have mounted against us and, like Reagan did when pulling our forces offshore from Lebanon after the terrorist disaster there in 1983, withdraw from Afghanistan. Talk tough (without the Bush II silly swagger or Cheney nastiness) about security at home; seize the bully pulpit and investigate and strengthen our defenses here against terrorism. Denounce terrorists, and do so immediately after events rather than waiting a few days to research options. Be a cowboy in rhetoric. But call it a day in this intractable conflict.
Barack Obama is an agent for change abroad, like Carter and Reagan, and he needs to act like it by looking to a long-term policy of economic engagement in the Middle East. That’s smart politics, and visionary diplomacy to boot – two avenues that America followed when we both were growing up.
Tags: Afghanistan, al Qaeda, Bill Clinton, China, Communism, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, globalization, iran, iraq, Jimmy Carter, Lebanon, Lyndon B. Johnson, Marshall Plan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nobel prize, Olympics, Ronald Reagan, South Africa, Taliban, Vietnam
Tom Zeiler
Thomas Zeiler is professor of history and international affairs at the University of Colorado. His publications include _Ambassadors in Pinstripes: The Spalding World Baseball Tour and the Birth of the American Empire_, “The Diplomatic History Bandwagon: A State of the Field” in the Journal of American History, and _Globalization and the American Century_ (co-authored with Alfred E. Eckes, Jr.), and Annihilation: A Global Military History of World War II. He currently serves as Editor for Diplomatic History, and of the SHAFR Guide, and was awarded the Bernath Lecture Prize by SHAFR in 2001.