In today’s Washington Post Reza Aslan dismisses Obama’s effect on America’s relations with the Islamic world in "He Could Care Less About the Story." Aslan’s two main contentions are that Obama lacks the foreign policy experience to make a change and that Obama’s "story" will have no impact on America’s relations with Islam.
Aslan argument is true to the extent that he is suggesting that repairing America’s image in the world will require foreign policy change in a host of arenas, not just an image rebranding. But what he does not appear to realize is that true foreign policy change is much more likely to come about in an Obama administration than in any other. And on top of the substantive policy change that Obama offers, his story will have an added positive effect on America’s relations with the world at large, including the Islamic world.
Aslan is correct to say that a simple rebranding campaign in itself will do nothing to ameliorate the deterioration in America's image. He states:
As someone who once was that young Muslim boy everyone seems to be imagining (albeit in Iran rather than Egypt), I'll let you in on a secret: He could not care less who the president of the United States is. He is totally unconcerned with whatever barriers a black (or female, for that matter) president would be breaking. He couldn't name three U.S. presidents if he tried. He cares only about one thing: what the United States will do.
Bracing policy change is needed. And that is precisely what Barack Obama offers. He was right on the single biggest foreign policy issue affecting America and Islam in the last 7 years: Iraq.
The single greatest reason for America’s standing as a global pariah in the world today is the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Much of the world, developed or developing, Muslim or otherwise, was vehemently opposed to the invasion and saw it for what it was: a naked attempt to transform the political landscape of the Middle East by destroying a country (however brutally governed by the tyrant Saddam) that posed no threat to the United States. The war was the diseased offspring of the marriage of fevered neoconservative fantasies on the one hand, and classic realpolitik concerns on the other.
And who opposed the Iraq war from the start? Barack Obama. Perhaps some people think Obama’s dissent from conventional wisdom in 2003 has been overplayed, or is not as much worthy of consideration as other aspects of his candidacy. But (a) if you believe that the Iraq war is a disaster for American interests generally, and particularly in relation to American-Islamic relations; and (b) if you believe that there were more than reasonable grounds for envisioning prior to the fact that an American invasion of Iraq was detrimental to American interests and principles; then (c) Obama’s prescience and principle--at least on the biggest foreign policy issue of the day, whatever your opinions about his other policies—matters a great deal. Most importantly, it represents a genuine independence of mind about American foreign policy in a time when subservience to Bush diktats has been the reigning governing policy of the last seven years. This includes other leading Democratic presidential contenders (though Edwards, to his everlasting credit, has recanted his support of the war).
If it is policy change that Aslan is looking for, if that young Muslim boy is looking at what American presidents do, not what they look like, then Obama represents the sharpest pole of distinction from Bush on foreign policy compared to anyone else. As someone who, like Aslan, was also once that "young Muslim boy", I see in Obama the judgment and the principle that assures me that he would not create or acquiesce to self-destructive policies antithetical to American and global values.
But Aslan is not content to simply ignore Obama’s policy stances--he decides to further dismiss Obama’s foreign policy expertise by adopting the Clinton "Obama lacks foreign policy experience and this is like electing a gifted television commentator" argument. In his words:
Obama may possess all the intuition of a fortuneteller. But as chair of a Senate subcommittee on Europe, he has never made an official trip to Western Europe (except a one-day stopover in London in August 2005) or held a single policy hearing. He's never faced off with foreign leaders and has no idea what a delicate sparring match diplomacy in the Middle East can be. And at a time in which the United States has gone from sole superpower to global pariah in a mere seven years, these things matter.
The problem with Aslan’s assertion here is that all this "policy hearing" experience, this "facing off with foreign leaders" knowledge, these "delicate sparring matches"—all this did not do a whit for the foreign policy establishment's ability (or alternatively, their courage) to recognize in 2002 and 2003 the fiasco that an invasion would entail. America’s "foreign policy problem" is much deeper than just the Bush administration. The problem is that much of our "experienced" foreign policy establishment, and our "experienced" media corporations, not only passively enabled this catastrophe, but were positively jingoistic in affirming its wisdom and necessity. And here is the kicker: Hillary Clinton, self-touted as the most "experienced" of the lot, did precisely the same.
Thus, from my perspective, if experience is judged by the criteria of holding a policy hearing or engaging in a diplomatic soiree, then perhaps it is better to be without that experience then to have it in the first place. In Obama’s words, Rumsfeld and Cheney had the longest resumes in Washington—and look at the good that did us.
This whole "experience" argument has other holes. To my mind, what matters in a president is his or her ability to discern the relevant course for American foreign policy and to provide the overarching framework within which the vast particulars can be worked out by the foreign policy machine. Dozens and hundreds and thousands of people are involved in working out the technocratic chinks, but it is the president who decides the course of the policy. Yes, it is the "vision" thing. We need someone at the top who can think, reflect, analyze a vast array of often conflicting information, and come up with a clear sense of what needs to be done based on a set of core guiding principles. For my money Obama displays this foreign policy aptitude most vividly.
Moreover, the vacuity of the "experience" argument has been revealed for what it is by several commentators intimately familiar with Bill Clinton’s campaign in 1992. John Schmidt, who served as associate attorney general in Bill Clinton’s administration and was chair of his 1992 Illinois campaign effort, declared:
Clinton had no experience at all in the national government...His most striking limitation was the fact that his entire adult experience outside government consisted of three years teaching at University of Arkansas Law School, during which he ran unsuccessfully for Congress.
Nevertheless, John Schmidt decided to support Bill Clinton. Why? Because "he was remarkably free of Democratic orthodoxy." Now Bill Clinton was far from a perfect president, in foreign or domestic policy. But he was a seer compared to the current president. And if Clinton's experience was sufficient at the time to run a reasonably competent foreign policy as president, then Obama’s may well count as far more than his.
Finally, what of the talk about how Obama’s "fresh face" could help in achieving American foreign policy aims? One should not overestimate, of course, the implications of having the first black president of the United States. Nevertheless, in many parts of Africa and the Arab world people will be astounded at the rise of an African American president. This recognition should not be undervalued.
After all, much of the world appears to have written off the United States as made in the image of Bush—a jingoistic, simplistic, narcissistic, even racist country that is hostile to the world. Now I have never believed this. I do not believe that Bush represents America. I do not believe that Bush even represents a certain segment of America. But I do believe that Bush has systematically cultivated certain malignant tendencies--nudged into consciousness by the brutal tragedy of 911—in order to pursue an ill conceived agenda of foreign and domestic disaster. Bush is a symbol of this malignancy; and if his policies must be defeated, this means defeating him as a symbol as well.
The election of Barack Obama, a man who has African roots and who has lived in a Muslim country, who openly talks about the need for firm and thoughtful dialogue rather than belligerent posturing, would be a decisive rejection of the symbolism of the Bush administration. Again, if this were all that Obama would have to offer--crudely speaking, a black face to sell Bush’s policies--then yes, it would make no difference to America’s image in the world. But the story of Obama's remarkable rise to national prominence, in conjunction with his independent foreign policy judgment rooted in the best of American traditions, will make a difference to that young Muslim boy.