The question may be, is Obama a Wilsonian idealist ?
We have never discussed Wilsonian idealism here, except
maybe in passing, but it is something worth at least a little
attention
since it, Wilsonianism, can make a major difference in
decision making. Some people take it for grated that such
idealism is all for the good, but no less than JFK thought that
Wilson was among our worst presidents precisely because of
excessive idealism. Similarly this has been part of the reason
that Carter has his own legion of anti-Carter critics, namely,
his obvious Wilsonian views.
In other words, George W was criticized for being naive, which
in many ways he was, but we may now be seeing another kind
of
naivete , one that Sarkozy sees in Obama.
This may beg the question about some equivalent of the same thing
in the person of Sarkozy, but maybe it would be useful to focus
on his criticisms and see what we might learn from them.
Billy
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September 29, 2009
Sarkozy's Contempt for Obama
By Jack
Kelly
The contempt with which the president of France regards the
president of the United States was displayed in public last week.
Nicolas Sarkozy was furious with Barack Obama for his adolescent
warbling about a world without nuclear weapons at a meeting Mr. Obama
chaired of the United Nations Security Council last Thursday (9/24).
"We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have
been banished from the face of the earth," President Obama said.
What infuriated President Sarkozy was that at the time Mr. Obama
said those words, Mr. Obama knew the mullahs in Iran had a secret
nuclear weapons development site, and he didn't call them on it.
‘President Obama dreams of a world without weapons...but right
in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite," Mr. Sarkozy
said.
"Iran since 2005 has flouted five Security Council resolutions,"
Mr. Sarkozy said. "North Korea has been defying Council resolutions
since 1993."
"What good has proposals for dialogue brought the international
community?" he asked rhetorically. "More uranium enrichment and
declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe out a UN member state off
the map."
If the Security Council had imposed serious sanctions on the
regimes which are flouting UN resolutions, the resolution Mr. Obama
proposed about working toward nuclear disarmament wouldn't have been so
meaningless, Mr. Sarkozy implied.
"If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend
viability to our commitment to reduce or own weapons and to making a
world without nuke weapons," he said.
The extent of President Obama's naivete - or duplicity - was on
display Friday at the G20 summit when the president, flanked by Mr.
Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, revealed to the
American public that Iran had a second nuclear weapons site on a
military base near the holy city of Qom.
News reports indicated Mr. Obama had been briefed on the site
before his inauguration. But he's been conducting his foreign policy as
if the mullahs could be trusted.
"Iran has been put on notice," President Obama said in Pittsburgh.
Iran responded to being "put on notice" by testing Monday two
ballistic missiles that could carry a nuclear warhead 1,200 miles.
It was to protect Europe from such missiles that the ABM system
President Obama abruptly cancelled earlier this month was designed.
Obama administration officials said the ABM cancellation -
regarded as a betrayal by Poland and the Czech Republic, where the
missiles and radars were to be located - actually improved U.S.
security, because it has made Russia more amenable to sanctions against
Iran.
The UN Security Council has never passed strong sanctions against
Iran because Russia and China have vetoed them. Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev said he still doesn't like economic sanctions, but will
support them if diplomacy fails. China remains opposed.
President Obama shouldn't count on Russian support, said Soviet
expert David Satter.
"Words are cheap for the Kremlin and the Iranians are aware of
this," he said. "The Russians, having endorsed sanctions, will now find
hundreds of reasons why any specific sanctions package is unfair...The
reason is that support for Iran is Russia's most important trump card
in foreign relations and there is little likelihood they will give it
up."
Iran has been put on notice before. At the G8 meeting in Italy in
July, Mr. Obama and other leaders set a "firm deadline" of Sep. 10 for
the Iranians to make a serious offer to negotiate about their nuclear
program. When the mullahs blew him off, Mr. Obama quietly extended the
deadline until December.
December could be too late. "Tehran soon could have humankind's
most frightening weapon if substantial diplomatic progress is not made
in the coming days," Rep. Howard Berman (D-Cal), the chairman of the
House Foreign Affairs Committee said Saturday (9/26).
If severe economic sanctions are not imposed immediately, in
months if not in weeks, only a military strike will b e able to prevent
an Iranian bomb.
But after sternly lecturing Iran on its international obligations
Friday, President Obama didn't call for sanctions. He called for more
negotiations. And then, as the Iranians were spitting in his eye with
the missile test, he jetted off to Copenhagen to lobby to have the 2016
Olympics held in Chicago.
No wonder Nicolas Sarkozy holds him in contempt.
