THE DESIRE NOT TO DEVIATE FROM W IN ANY MEANINGFUL WAY...:

What’s Different About the Obama Foreign Policy?: The continuities with Bush are striking. But what happens when diplomacy fails? (ELIOT COHEN , 8/03/09, WSJ)

The Iraq drawdown moves more quickly and definitively than the Bush administration had desired, but it is not the repudiation the folks from MoveOn.org desired. The Bush-appointed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and his Bush-promoted generals have implemented a build-up in Afghanistan that began in the last years of the previous administration. Strikes within Pakistan from unmanned aerial vehicles continue, and the administration reassuringly laces its rhetoric about al Qaeda with words like “eliminate,” “destroy” and “kill.”

Relationships with Europe have warmed. But that defrosting also began in the last years of the Bush administration, as it secured an increase in French forces in Afghanistan while easing that country’s re-entry into NATO, and backed a European-led response to the Russian invasion of Georgia.

Middle East peace process? Sure. Special envoys instead of large peace conferences, but the idea is the same.

Multinational diplomacy? Continuity there too, judging by the stacks of ineffective U.N. resolutions on North Korea and Iran.

Increased emphasis on foreign aid? We will see if the Obama administration can top the large and effective AIDS relief effort in Africa launched by President George W. Bush.

The rhetoric about the core of American foreign policy also remains consistent. Consider Mrs. Clinton’s recent speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The question is not whether our nation can or should lead, but how it will lead in the 21st century.” Not much bashfulness about American pre-eminence there.

The Moderometer: Charting Obama’s Zig-Zag: ... Step Left Domestically, Gesture Left Globally, but Keep Your Foreign Policies Somewhat Centered (Gil Troy , 8/03/09, HNN)

Regarding foreign policy, Obama has positioned himself as the “un-Bush,” reaching out to America’s adversaries and critics even at the cost of dismaying some of America’s friends, especially Israel. Yet, his characteristic caution has moderated his actual foreign policies. Thus, he has gestured left while governing toward the center, proceeding moderately in his national security policies by not withdrawing too hastily from Iran, increasing troops in Afghanistan, and authorizing attacks from unmanned armed Drones in Pakistan.

Foreign policy fizzling: Down south, things don’t go better with Obama (Peter Brookes, August 3, 2009, Boston Herald)

Chavez is leading - and in some cases bankrolling - the Latin American, anti-U.S. authoritarian left in places like Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia and even El Salvador.

It’s no surprise that Chavez’s chum, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, has also been implicated in having FARC ties. He also recently closed a U.S. counter-drug air base in his country. Not likely a coincidence.

Despite all of this, Washington has decided to send an ambassador back to Caracas after our envoy was expelled by Chavez in 2008. Go figure.

In Honduras, the Obama administration was almost silent on the constitutional power-grab by now-deposed Chavez ally, President Manuel Zelaya. Then, remarkably, it chose to side with the ousted authoritarian-in-the-making over democratic forces.

In addition to doing little to deal with anti-gringo politicos rising in Latin America, the Obamanistas aren’t doing much to help our amigos, either.

Both Colombia and Panama are still waiting for movement on free trade agreements and just south of the border Mexico could certainly use more help in fighting the drug cartels.

Dancing With Damascus: Courting Syria really does require the audacity of hope. (WSJ, 8/03/09)

Since taking power nine years ago, Syrian strongman Bashar Assad has: turned his country into a safe haven and transit corridor for jihadists en route to Iraq; funneled sophisticated munitions to Hezbollah and probably Hamas; sought to build an illicit nuclear reactor with North Korean help; mostly failed to liberalize Syria’s economy and resisted liberalizing its politics; publicly declared that Israel would never “become a legitimate state even if the peace process is implemented”; and ruled while Syrians have been implicated by a U.N. investigator in the 2005 assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

So, naturally, President Obama has made Syria a prime target for diplomacy as part of his new Axis of Engagement.

...does not convey the ability to be W.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 3, 2009 6:50 AM