THE TRUE INTERNATIONAL TEST--W OR NIIXON?:

Peace and War (George Packer, December 21, 2009 , The New Yorker)

No Obama doctrine yet exists. What the President has is a sophisticated theology, an anti-utopian belief that human imperfection is inevitable but progress is possible if human beings remain self-critical about what they can achieve. This is the theology of Reinhold Niebuhr, whom Obama has called “one of my favorite philosophers.” One evening in 2007, after leaving the Senate floor, Obama said of Niebuhr, to the Times’ David Brooks:

I take away the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.

The spirit of Niebuhr presided over the Nobel address. Neither idealist nor realist, Obama seemed to be saying that universal values and practical geopolitics exist in the same tension as war and peace. The readiness is all—the ability to discern opportunities and not be hemmed in by rigid abstractions. The President cited Nixon’s overture to Mao during the Cultural Revolution as an apparently inexcusable act that over the long run produced real improvements in the lives of the Chinese people. If something similar comes of Obama’s outreach to Iran, it, too, could be seen as a historic diplomatic breakthrough.

Richard Nixon couldn't care less that billions of people would have been sentenced to communist dictatorship in perpetuity had his vision prevailed. It may well be that President Obama cares just as little. But his words yesterday suggested he may have some of the empathy that made Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush hammers of the isms.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 12, 2009 7:01 AM