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Meet the New Foreign Policy, Same As the Old Foreign Policy

I wrote some weeks ago at Pajamas Media: [1]

For all the vitriol that has been coming from the left, and specifically out of President Obama’s mouth during the campaign, there’s a difference in tone coming out of the Obama camp over the last several weeks. There has been an abandonment of the hot rhetoric of the leftist in favor of of a liberal forced to face the reality of the world around him (i.e., adpopting existing White House policy). The change in tone is a recognition that the rhetoric that the American public was offered during the election was simply not based on reality.

As President Obama and his people are briefed on what has been happening in the world these last eight years, the insider’s view has given them a completely new perspective on what to do about the situation, resulting in completely different actions as compared to the ones they were telling everyone they would take once they were given the power.

The problem, of course, is that the always image conscious Obama needs to create the image of changing American foreign policy to satisfy his base,while not straying far from the policies of Bush… policies which unlike those pitched to his base t get elected, will actually work. I  warned at the time, that the chances of them actually pulling that sleight of hand off, saying one thing while doing another,  were minimal at best.

So, along comes Joe Biden [2] this morning as noted by Bruce McQuain [3] at Q&O

As promised, Vice President Joe Biden reached out to the international community Saturday, saying the U.S. is open for talks with Iran and Russia to repair relations, and willing to work with allies to solve world problems.

But in his first major foreign policy speech for the new administration, the Democrat also warned that the U.S. stands ready to take pre-emptive action against Tehran if it does not abandon its nuclear ambitions and support for terrorism.

Repair relations?  Just words at the moment.

Well, no… not really.

To my mind, the statement is declarative of several thoughts.  Among them;

  1. Foreign policy was damaged by the United States.
  2. Thereby a that the United States bears the responsibility of repairing it.
  3. That the usual Liberal tactics will be employed in an attempt to “repair” them.
  4. Among these, will be the always ineffective and usually counterproductive “Hind-Lick maneuver “.
  5. The current Democrats have learned  nothing from the mistakes of their brother Democrats of the past and the disasters that implementation of liberal policy in the past has created.   Specifically Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton.

As Bruce points out:

For instance:

“I think Vice President Biden came to Munich today in a spirit of partnership,” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told AP Television News. “I think he set an ambitious agenda with big goals and high objectives, and he called and challenged us to work with him. I think that’s the right spirit.”

That hits me as diplo-speak for “he’s going to do things the way we want them done”.  And, of course, that’s not leadership.

Understand too that diplomats are also going to give this a positive spin because they stand to gain from it. That’s why Russia said:

“The tonality was rather encouraging. It was really a serious call to restart U.S. foreign policy — including, clearly, Russian-American relations,” said Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international relations committee in Russia’s lower parliament house.

That’s diplo-speak for “we think we can roll these guys”.

Exactly so. which, is exactly why they wanted the Democrats in the White House and the first place.  They knew they would gain by it, and America would lose.  It’s really that simple.

Now, a cautionary note: Taking Biden’s word on matters of policy is problematic at best given his reputation as a loose cannon.  He ran in exactly the opposite direction from the top of the ticket on several different occasions during the campaign, all of which were only peripherally noted in the dinosaur media.   We have no reason to believe that the gaff-prone Biden has changed at all between then and now.  It certainly is the most logical way of explaining the differences between the signals that the Obama administration was sending previously, and the ones that Joe Biden sent in Munich.

So, the question becomes, how much policy change will actually occur?  Frankly, as little as they think they can get away with. And, one suspects, far less than what those in Germany heard Biden going on about, when he had his hand out for more WU troops, for Iraq and Afghanistan.

That shortcoming,  of course, will create more damage to the relationships we have around the world.  And in more than just the relationships the Democrats think we should have.

If there is anything that is surprising about all of this, it’s that anyone is, or will be surprised at all by any of it.