The "Wasn't Me" Doctrine
James Joyner writes:
There's good reason to be skeptical of the degree to which Obama's foreign policy is actually new, much less a doctrine. Barnett and Drezner rightly note that changes in both tactics and optics are welcome given the point of departure. At some point, however, the time for apologies and mea culpas and pushing reset buttons must come to an end and actual leadership must begin. Given the magnitude of the challenges on the docket, it can't come soon enough.Obama has been in office only three months, so demanding a fully formed Doctrine worthy of the history books at this stage is asking too much. But it's reasonable to expect substance at this point.
I think Joyner is mostly right here. I take Greg's point about not getting caught up in the cosmetic stuff (I myself was irritated by the faux-kerfuffle over Obama's bow to King Abdullah), but at a certain point, you have to own up to what American policy is and simply captain the ship.
On domestic policy, President Obama has been very good at embracing America's history in order to sell his own candidacy and administration. When he talks economics at home he talks about those "hard working" Americans. Yet when he goes abroad he seems to wash his hands of them and their history. When, at the recent Summit of the Americas, Nicaraguan Kleptocrat Danny Ortega went on a 50-minute diatribe against American interventionism, Obama simply excused himself from the history. He didn't defend it, nor did he attempt to explain it. He could have simply ignored Ortega, instead opting to embrace Chavez and the other regional leaders. This alone - refusing to let Ortega near the cool kids table - may have had a dramatic effect. He did none of this, and instead pandered to Ortega's hectoring.
Obama made sure to defend his own record on American imperialism - hey, he was only three months old. That's all well and good for this President, but let's hope the "wasn't me" doctrine doesn't become standard procedure for all American presidents abroad.
