Barack Obama embarks on a serious foreign policy initiative with his trip to Europe and the Middle East, to bolster his foreign policy credentials.
To that end, he gave a major speech on his global view recently and was criticized by John McCain who said that he should have visited the scene of the problem first and then proposed policy recommendations.
However, John McCain’s speech on Education policy at the recent NAACP convention was given before he has spent virtually any serious time in the black community in order to determine what works educating black children.
Instead, he presented a canned conservative proposal for charter schools and vouchers for private schools that seeks to dissemble public education where most black children are educated.
I believe that for Obama to give his speech before he went abroad created substance for the foreign press to feed on, as he repeats his themes before huge audiences that give him an 85 percent favorable rating. And for those who are concerned about a shift in his position on ending the war in Iraq, this speech would appear to lock-in his anti-war views and the proposal that if he becomes president, he would seek to restore a collaborative method of working with European allies and develop a real consensus among allies in the Middle East that may lead to peace.
Obviously, his goal is to build support for his ideas abroad among audiences that have also opposed the current direction of American foreign policy. The electoral impact of this is to create a blow-back to the United States that could boost the Obama campaign by proving that he has substantial credibility abroad and that the American image will be improved by him being elected president.
Obama’s position should have gained much more credibility than it has in light of the Maliki government’s announcement that because of its confidence that the Iraqi military will gain control over more territory, they want to achieve a timetable of troop reduction and withdrawal with Bush.
His trip contains serious risks, for by going to Afghanistan he emphasizes his view that America is fighting the wrong war in Iraq and as a result, doesn’t have enough troops to devote to the war against Al Queda that planned and executed 9/11. This problem has achieved realistic visibility as George Bush now seeks to add more troops in Afghanistan, but his general say that the military is stretched by the war in Iraq.
But the credit is rarely given to Obama for leading the current administration to pay more attention to Afghanistan.
While one of the major goals of the Obama trip is to enhance his political credentials as Commander-in-Chief, it is also true that because he wants to end the war in Iraq, initially the eyes of the American people he may not need such glowing credentials.
In any case the issue of such credentials is often a charade because presidents don’t fight wars, generals do. The mistake of a “hands-on” practice is a lesson that John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy learned could backfire in the failure of the 1961 “Bay of Pigs invasion.”
Beside the posture of Obama’s approach to the Middle East, his speech also indicated that he would restore America’s leadership in global affairs, which includes taming the negative effects of globalization on the domestic economy.
Did the Bush administration recently cancel the contract for the development of a new Air Force oil tanker to Airbus and Northrup Grumman that would send thousands of jobs to Europe because a different Democratic position on trade plays well with the American people?
I think so and this is another win for Obama as he leads the Democrats into the fall election against McCain.
So, Obama will not achieve a unanimous reception in Europe and since the corporate sector will likely be suspicious of position on trade this may generate some negative press as well.
However, in the balance between both political and economic issues, Europeans may have had enough with the long-ranger style of the current administration and is far more likely to want to deal with a new occupant in the White House they can negotiate with on both accounts.
Thus, despite McCain’s long residence in the Senate, and George Bush’s relative inexperience abroad, Obama’s background and his outlook promise much more for the global experience than what is happening at the moment.
On this trip, Obama could also criticize the G-8 countries’ failure on African poverty reduction, however, he has said relatively little about Africa and his website section on Africa is an embarrassment. But, one issue at a time.
Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press).
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