By Linda Chavez
Friday, August 09, 2013
President Obama's decision to cancel his planned trip to
Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin was the right thing to do
in light of Russia's decision to grant asylum to Edward Snowden. But it also
illustrates problems of the president's own making.
One of Obama's chief aims upon assuming office was to
remake the image of the United States in the world's eyes. And he has -- but
not in the way he imagined.
Speaking in Cairo in 2009, Obama promised specifically a
"new beginning" in American foreign policy. Many interpreted the
speech to be merely a criticism of President George W. Bush's presidency and,
particularly, the negative response to the war in Iraq among Arabs and others.
But the comments signaled something more troubling, a
critique of America widely shared on the left: that we are a nation no better
than others and should behave accordingly.
As the president famously said in 2009, "I believe
in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British
exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." This view
is common on the left but would strike most conservatives -- and, I suspect,
most Americans -- as wrong-headed.
This is not to say the president doesn't love America.
Barack Obama and many others on the left love America; however, they don't love
the America that is, but the America they believe they can create. If only
America could become the country the left envisions -- egalitarian among our
own citizens and deferential to the rest of the world -- everyone would love
us, or so they believe.
Obama took the left's view a step further. He seemed to
think his own personal charisma could overcome America's benighted reputation
with friends and foes alike. Remember, this is the man who thought he could sit
down with Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and they would
change their ways.
But instead of embracing Barack Obama and the new America
he was creating, friends and foes alike came to view America as increasingly
weak.
Certainly Putin seems to. How else could he grant Snowden
asylum while patronizingly asserting that he did so on the condition that the
leaker stops "harming our American partners"?
Putin has no interest in protecting America's interests
and certainly not if they conflict with his own vision of Russian
self-interest. Putin's only goal is to protect Russia's interests.
Would that Obama were to act the same way when it comes
to U.S. interests. Instead of behaving as president of the United States, he
seems at times to fashion himself, as he has said on more than one occasion,
"a citizen of the world."
A weaker America makes for a more dangerous world.
America appeared weak after the failed Vietnam War, which opened the door to
Soviet expansion in Asia, Latin America and Africa and to the rise of Islamic
fundamentalism in Iran. In the 1990s, America was thriving as an economic force
but seemed oblivious to the threats being directed at us by Osama bin Laden.
In both cases, American weakness provided openings for
our enemies. The Ayatollah Khomeini took hostages at the American embassy in
Tehran and held them for more than a year, and al-Qaida attacked the World
Trade Center in 1993 and again in 2001, killing some 3,000 Americans.
It is difficult to predict what harm will come from our
perceived weakness now. It already has allowed countries to ignore their duty
to turn over a criminal like Snowden, but things could get much worse. The very
least the president could do was snub Putin. It may not be much of a response,
but it is better than nothing.
But like President Jimmy Carter's boycott of the 1980
Olympics in Moscow in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Obama's
actions won't be enough to restore American standing in the world.
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