Barack Obama’s Brave New World

It was a strange speech that President Obama gave on Wednesday at the West Point Military Academy. He said all the right words and went head to head with Republican hard line foreign policy maxims. He said, “Since World War II, some of our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences, without building international support and legitimacy for our action, without leveling with the American people about the sacrifices required.”

The problem with this speech was that it was aimed so specifically at an American audience that it turned off the rest of the world.

At home, Obama is criticized for weak foreign policy leadership. In his speech, Obama justified American leadership and reiterated his greatest achievements as the reasons why the world was now a better place. Obama repeated what he had announced a year ago, namely, that the use of unmanned drones would prove to practically eliminate civilian casualties. The on-site reports from Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, however, belie this claim. He said he believes in “American exceptionalism” with every fiber of his being but said that exceptionalism doesn’t lie in circumventing international norms and constitutional principles but rather in enforcing them. The world would laugh itself silly if the situation weren’t so sad.

Obama reiterated what his election victory in 2008 had accomplished: A reversal from his predecessor’s policies. After so many beautiful speeches that have resulted in so few changes, people are getting tired of listening. A few nice words about diplomacy rather than rattling sabers in Iran’s direction aren’t enough to restore his credibility.