America to the World: Grow Up

Scot Wilson's piece on Obama's foreign policy in the Washington Post echoes some familiar themes and quotes an administration official on the over-arching strategy of trying to win international cooperation by emphasizing shared interests:

"There is no naivete here," said Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for strategic communications who helped Obama write many of his foreign policy speeches. "The president knows that nations do not always live up to their responsibilities -- otherwise this would be easy. But if you walk away from the basic bargain that all nations have rights and responsibilities, then you have less ability to marshal the cooperation to resolve these issues, too."

That doesn't sound naive, but it sure sounds arrogant. Another way to say what Rhodes said is that the president knows that nations do not always have the same interests as the United States, but it's up to us to try to find some common ground. Instead, Rhodes suggests that other nations - like adolescents - don't always understand what's expected of them by the adults (i.e. us).

David Schor thinks that's just great:

With respect to gaining the cooperation of others more broadly (including to maintain pressure on Iran), my own tack is to ask what the alternative is. If the only hope for international cooperation lies in those areas where traditional national self-interests converge, this would all be easy. More to the point, international politics as usual would leave many problems -- nuclear proliferation, global warming, poverty, Israel-Palestine -- on a very negative trajectory.

It shouldn't take a lot of enlightenment to see the enlightened self-interests on these issues. A little statesmanship is all we're asking. After all, that's why they're called world leaders.

I simply don't understand this conceit - that once nations jettison their false consciousness they'll recognize their "responsibilities" just so happen to align with Washington's interests. Take China. What is its "responsibility" vis-a-vis North Korea? To do what the United States wants it to do? Or to defend its border against potential instability? Take Iran. Clearly, the "threat" of Iran is a lot different if you're Russia (or India, or China or even Germany) than if you're Israel and the United States. Why does "enlightened self interest" obligate these countries to subordinate their economic interests to Washington's desire to retain hegemony in the Gulf?

I'm not saying we shouldn't try to win their cooperation. But I think we need to be realistic about the extent to which other nations are going to put aside their interests on behalf of Washington's the world's. Consider that to win Schor's hoped-for broad-based international cooperation, we'll likely end up with lowest common denominator outcomes - if we achieve anything at all. He is right to ask what the alternative is, but then, it would serve those advocating for international cooperation to lower domestic expectations. You're not doing the cause of international diplomacy much good if you make demands of it that it cannot bear. That's politically problematic, of course, because Democrats are as much in thrall to an expansive reading of what America's core interests are as the Republicans, but it's the only viable option that I can see.