Got Yer Back

In the latest New Yorker there’s an article by Ryan Lizza called “Leading from Behind”, which presents the President’s recent foreign-policy tactics as a way to do things without exposing ourselves to charges of unilateralist swagger. In a recent blog entry, Lizza explains:

…at the heart of the idea of leading from behind is the empowerment of other actors to do your bidding or, as in the case of Libya, to be used as cover for a policy that would be suspect in the eyes of other nations if it’s branded as a purely American operation.

Well, Charles Krauthammer’s having none of it. Like it or not — and that’s really what’s at issue here — we are still the world’s dominant economic and military superpower. If that makes us unpopular in some circles — as it inevitably will, no matter how much “cover” we seek — so be it. Multilateral fig leaves aren’t fooling anyone, anyway, and if you worry more about pleasing everyone than being effective, you’ll get neither.

Krauthammer sums up (my emphasis):

We must lead from behind because we are reviled. Pray tell, when were we not? During Vietnam? Or earlier, under Eisenhower? When his vice president was sent on a good-will trip to Latin America, he was spat upon and so threatened by the crowds that he had to cut short his trip. Or maybe later, under the blessed Reagan? The Reagan years were marked by vast demonstrations in the capitals of our closest allies denouncing America as a warmongering menace taking the world into nuclear winter.

“Obama came of age politically,’ explains Lizza, “during the post”“Cold War era, a time when America’s unmatched power created widespread resentment.’ But the world did not begin with the coming to consciousness of Barack Obama. Cold War resentments ran just as deep.

It is the fate of any assertive superpower to be envied, denounced, and blamed for everything under the sun. Nothing has changed. Moreover, for a country so deeply reviled, why during the massive unrest in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, and Syria have anti-American demonstrations been such a rarity?

Who truly reviles America the hegemon? The world that Obama lived in and that shaped him intellectually: the elite universities; his Hyde Park milieu (including his not-to-be-mentioned friends, William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn); the church he attended for two decades, ringing with sermons more virulently anti-American than anything heard in today’s full-throated uprising of the Arab Street.

It is the liberal elites who revile the American colossus and devoutly wish to see it cut down to size. Leading from behind ”” diminishing America’s global standing and assertiveness ”” is a reaction to their view of America, not the world’s.

Other presidents take anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing ”” as do most Americans ”” in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America’s fitness for leadership.

I don’t always agree with Dr. Krauthammer — his views on foreign policy lean more toward the neoconservative than mine do these days — but this is exactly right. What he describes is just what I hear from my liberal friends in academia, in the music biz, in my ultra-blue haunts of Park Slope and Wellfleet. It is a Zinn/Chomsky foreign policy; a policy of atonement.

Read Krauthammer’s essay here.

11 Comments

  1. the one eyed man says

    Any evidence that “Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America’s fitness for leadership,” or its two inferences: that Obana is anti-American and that America is unfit to lead?

    There’s none in Krauthammer’s piece. Are we just supposed to take his word for it?

    Posted April 29, 2011 at 7:15 pm | Permalink
  2. That Obama is anti-American is evidenced by his actions. All serious people can see that.

    Posted April 29, 2011 at 8:47 pm | Permalink
  3. If you voted for Obama in 2008 to prove you’re not a racist, you’ll have to vote for someone else in 2012 to prove you’re not an idiot.

    Posted April 29, 2011 at 9:41 pm | Permalink
  4. the one eyed man says

    Henry: initially I thought you were like Simon Cowell, or someone who doesn’t have much to say except to make third grade insults. I was wrong. I now realize that you’re more like Newman (both Alfred E. and the one from Seinfeld, but more like the latter, with his unctuous and loathsome nature). If you have something to say, then shock us all by saying it. I’m not holding my breath, though.

    The piece in this week’s New Yorker — which is titled “The Consequentialist,” not “Leading From Behind” — is actually a different piece than Krauthammer suggests, and his quote (which is from the last paragraph) is somewhat out of context. Lizza has a number of interesting things to say, and his article is well worth reading.

    Posted April 29, 2011 at 10:03 pm | Permalink
  5. Peter: Initially I thought you were just an ordinary pompous ass. But I was wrong. You are not ordinary.

    Posted April 29, 2011 at 10:18 pm | Permalink
  6. the one eyed man says

    Henry, seek immediate medical attention for erections lasting over four hours.

    Posted April 29, 2011 at 10:24 pm | Permalink
  7. “I’m not holding my breath, though.”

    All serious people are hoping you’ll change your mind, Peter.

    Posted April 29, 2011 at 11:04 pm | Permalink
  8. Malcolm says

    I’ve been driving all night, and might not be at the computer much this weekend. I’ll let you two slug this one out. Just leave payment on the bar for any stools or bottles you break.

    You’re right about the title, Peter. It was the blog post, not the NY’er piece, that was called Leading From Behind.

    Posted April 30, 2011 at 12:36 am | Permalink
  9. JK says

    Well.

    I can see you ignored my admonition to remain aloof from Krauthammer and stick with “Letters To The Editor.”

    Then again, I went with the stuff I got and posted to my local paper.

    I wonder Malcolm. Should we keep a scorecard?

    Posted April 30, 2011 at 12:38 am | Permalink
  10. Malcolm says

    On the few occasions I watched American Idol, I almost always found myself agreeing with Simon Cowell, though I admit he wasn’t habitually tactful. The man knows quality from crap, and he calls a spade a spade.

    Posted April 30, 2011 at 12:41 am | Permalink
  11. the one eyed man says

    I agree that Cowell is a good judge of musical talent. Maybe the better example would be the (forgotten but not gone) Don Rickels.

    However, I think Cowell would fit right in with my idea for a new TV game show. It’s called “What An Asshole!” Contestants vie to see who is the biggest asshole. Hilarity ensues. The first episode could have Cowell battling it out with Donald Trump. I think it’s a can’t-lose proposition.

    Posted April 30, 2011 at 7:48 am | Permalink

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