Israel Matzav

Barack Obama's intellectual godmother

I've already posted on the possibility that Samantha Power will become Secretary of State in a second Obama administration. After reading this post, the question you should be asking yourself is why should she bother? She already has enough influence over President Obama's thinking - she is his intellectual soulmate - and he is already implementing her foreign policy without the need for a Senate confirmation hearing or constant Congressional oversight. Stanley Kurtz demonstrates how and why.

A survey of Power’s writings indicates her long preoccupation with a series of issues now associated with Obama’s most controversial foreign-policy moves. In a 2003 piece for the New York Times, for example, Power bemoaned the reluctance of American policymakers to apologize to other countries for our supposed past mistakes. While Obama’s controversial (and so far unproductive) willingness to engage with the leaders of rogue states was initially attributed to a novice error during a 2007 debate with Hillary Clinton, the need to deal directly with even the worst rogue states is a major theme of Power’s second book, Chasing the Flame. That book was written in 2007, while Power was advising Obama’s presidential campaign. A 2007 piece by Power in The New York Times Book Review attacked the phrase “War on Terror,” which of course the Obama administration has since dropped.

In an appearance at Columbia University, just hours before the president’s Libya address, Power herself identified the protection of the citizens of Benghazi as the core purpose of our current intervention. Yet it should not be thought that Power’s shaping of Obama’s reasons and actions ends there. Almost a decade ago, Power laid out a series of secondary, interest-based justifications for humanitarian interventions — e.g., avoiding the creation of militarized refugees who might undermine regional stability, and flashing a discouraging signal to regional dictators — all of which were featured in Obama’s speech to the nation. To be sure, these “interest-based” justifications were largely rationalizations for an intervention driven overwhelmingly by humanitarian considerations. Yet Power’s broader and longstanding framing of the issue has been adopted wholesale by Obama.

In Power’s view, to be credible, humanitarian interventions must respond to immediate danger (thus Obama’s waiting until the militarily unpropitious moment when Benghazi itself was under imminent threat), must be supported by multilateral bodies (thus the resort to the U.N., NATO, and the Arab League in preference to the U.S. Congress), “must forswear up front . . . commercial or strategic interests in the region” (thus the disavowal of regime change as a goal of our multilateral action), and must “commit to remaining for a finite period” (as Obama has pledged to do in Libya). Even NATO’s threat to bomb the rebels if they kill civilians (which struck many as unrealistic, and at cross-purposes with our supposed military goals) is foreshadowed in Power’s writings, which highlight the need to police both sides in any humanitarian action.

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The novel doctrine of “responsibility to protect,” which Power means the Libyan action to enshrine in international law, could someday be used to justify military intervention to impose a “two-state solution” on Israel (apparently this is one of Power’s longstanding goals, although she now disavows it). The International Criminal Court, which Power has long defended, may someday enable the leftist Europeans who run it to place American soldiers and politicians on trial for supposed war crimes. The Obama administration’s troubling acquiescence in the development of sweeping international prohibitions on “aggression” may one day make virtually any use of force not pre-approved by the United Nations subject to international sanctions. These are the long-term goals of Power’s policies, although they are seldom confessed or discussed.

On rare occasions, Power comes straight out and admits that the sorts of interventions she favors constitute an almost pure cost to American national interest, traditionally defined. More often, she retreats into the language of “pragmatism” and “self-interest” to justify what she knows Americans will not support on its own terms. That is Samantha Power’s way and, not coincidentally, Barack Obama’s way as well.

For Israel, which is loathed by Power, this is especially bad news.

What could go wrong?

Labels: responsibility to protect, Samantha Power

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:34 PM