Whatever else can be said about Senator Barack Obama's "Comprehensive Strategy to Fight Global Terrorism" speech today, it has certainly put the spotlight on foreign policy in a manner far more suited to get to the root of things than the silly media-enhanced spat over whether a Democratic President should dial up the likes of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the afternoon of January 20, 2009.
The screaming started before the verbatim transcript was to be found anywhere. You can find it here.
Among progressives, foreign policy is always difficult to discuss for more than three minutes before the shouting starts. Because progressives (that is, liberals and those of us further to the left) have divergent goals (although these often overlap, as in, say, Darfur), and we don't have the same analysis, although there is considerable overlap. It's that overlap which makes us allies. Over the past few years, we've been more or less united around getting out of Iraq and staying out of Iran, but when the talk turns to the details, and when we go further afield, our differences cannot be submerged. In part, that's because some progressives choose words that make other progressives (and especially the full spectrum of Democrats) squirmy: words like "imperialism" and "hegemony."
This is nothing new obviously; it's essentially where we were during the Vietnam era. It's why many people are asking whether, say, Senator Hillary Clinton is an updated 21st Century version of a Cold War liberal or somebody with a fresher vision. It's why the term "terrorism" itself, much less "global war on terrorism." can kindle the outpouring of fierce debate we've seen today.
That debate is further complicated by the fact that left progressives themselves are divided. There are those who believe that the terrorism promoted by Islamic extremists is purely blowback that would disappear if Western empire building were to be curbed. And there are those of us who take a less sanguine view, but wonder how - given the ferocity of the debate - we can express ourselves in favor of a foreign policy which deals effectively with the violent behavior of extremists (and the retrograde social views of many of the societies in which they operate) without contributing either ammunition or cover to the hegemonists. Hegemonists who are often as bad or worse than the extremists they claim give the U.S. no choice but to act unilaterally and commit atrocities.
What is desperately needed among progressives of all stripes as well as their Democratic allies is a full-throated discussion of the entire panoply of foreign-policy issues, starting with an intense focus on what to do about the military-industrial-congressional complex that was first described nearly half a century ago. Intense, as in in-depth, meaning not getting caught up in the snare and delusion of shallowness toward which the megamedia drives all such discussions.
We need - if you'll excuse the cliche - a shift in the paradigm of U.S. foreign policy that rejects hegemony whether in its NeoCon robes or something more disguised. On the other hand, merely pulling out of Iraq, which we must do, dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conundrum, which we must do, and backing off from confrontation with Iran, which we must do, does not mean there will be no need to confront and curb foreign extremists who seek to run the world in their image, just as we confront our own extremists and seek to curb them. The situation is more complex than simply "Western imperialism," though I would be the last to downplay its pernicious effects in the Middle East (and, of course, elsewhere), historically and today.
The essential discussion ought be about about how we get from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow while not engaging in, or encouraging, or enabling violence and subjugation - nor leaving ourselves (and other citizens of the world) open to such. We need to talk about how we can stop the U.S. from being the world's policeman and placing that role firmly in the hands of international bodies of which we are a part. That was supposed to be the U.N.'s job, according to the charter the U.S. not only signed, but also pretty much wrote.
Please take the poll. But before you do, please read Obama's speech if you haven't yet done so.