Do We Even Have A Foreign Policy?

 

imageEven The New York Times is piling on Susan Rice for this — so perhaps it’s unnecessary to pose the question — but her comments strike me as so wondrously stupid and terrifying that I’ve got to wonder whether there could be any charitable or vaguely reassuring way of reading it:

[Rice] was peppered with critiques of the president’s Syria and China policies, as well as the White House’s delays in releasing a national security strategy, a congressionally mandated document that sets out foreign policy goals. On that last point, Ms. Rice had a sardonic reply.

“If we had put it out in February or April or July,” she said, according to two people who were in the room, “it would have been overtaken by events two weeks later, in any one of those months.”

I get that she was being sardonic. I get it that this is not what she literally and officially thinks about this. But she’s an experienced public official who knew this would make the front page of The New York Times. It would therefore seem that she knowingly told the whole world — and not entirely in jest — the United States no longer has foreign policy goals because there have been a series of crises in the past year. Oh, and by the way, to hell with Congress.

Does that sound as epically mad to you as it does to me? Is there any way her comment could have been funny and appropriate at the time, or that she could have thought, reasonably, that it would never leak? I suppose it’s possible that I’ve lost my sense of proportion and this actually makes perfect sense. But even The New York Times is freaking out, so I fear it’s every bit as Under-the-Reign-of-Elagabalus as it sounds.

 

Published in Foreign Policy, General
Like this post? Want to comment? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

There are 69 comments.

Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.
  1. Tom Meyer Member
    Tom Meyer
    @tommeyer

    I fear it’s every bit as Under-the-Reign-of-Elagabalus as it sounds.

    Oh dear…

    • #1
  2. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Hold on…  I have to pause for a moment…

     [Rice] was peppered

    Delicious.  OK, back to the post.

    • #2
  3. otherdeanplace@yahoo.com Member
    otherdeanplace@yahoo.com
    @EustaceCScrubb

    The administration has a policy. The policy is “Don’t Do Stupid Stuff“. They just aren’t capable of carrying it out.

    • #3
  4. user_75648 Thatcher
    user_75648
    @JohnHendrix

    Based on results, it appears that  Obama’s foreign policy amounts to “See to it that neither American nor her friends ever win.”

    • #4
  5. Casey Inactive
    Casey
    @Casey

    Claire Berlinski: or that she could have thought, reasonably, that it would never leak?

    I don’t think these people think people are paying attention.

    In PA news:

    HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery stepped down Monday, agreeing not to seek elective judicial office or appointment as a senior judge because of disclosures that he sent or received hundreds of pornographic emails.

    Or perhaps they think they are protected by the cone of silence.

    cone of silence

    • #5
  6. Jimmy Carter Member
    Jimmy Carter
    @JimmyCarter

    Claire Berlinski: But she’s an experienced public official who knew this would make the front page of The New York Times.

    In Her defense, She probably didn’t know about Her comments until She read ’em in the paper.

    • #6
  7. swatter Inactive
    swatter
    @swatter

    Clare, foreign policy is now being outed. We are hearing stories of Obama telling the Mullahs back in ’08/’09 they should have nothing to fear from him as he was on their side.

    Then you have the defacto country’s first female president Valerie Jarrett, who has grown up in Iran setting policy and creating the multiple choice questions for Obama to check on which option he wants.

    Then you have VJ, who was dead set against the binLaden attack.

    Then you have a President, who by definition is Muslim, get schooled by a gent in Hawaii named Davis and later, in Chicago by a terrorist named Ayers.

    Then you have the Secretary of State, Clinton, whose #1 gal, Huma Abedin, who has all the paper needed to be a graduate of the Love the Muslim Brotherhood University, also goes for the Muslim Brotherhood more than what one should.

    And from your experiences in Turkey, who is Obama’s best foreign friend- Erdoguan?

    Just saying we do have a foreign policy but it is one Obama doesn’t want us to know about.

    • #7
  8. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    “The dog ate my foreign policy. But don’t blame the dog. He was just reacting to an anti-dog video that some cat people put on YouTube.’

    • #8
  9. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    Claire,

    Here is my scale for Women in Politics.  Sorry if this seems sexist but it is the only way I am able to hold onto sanity with all of the false ideological gender obsessions running loose.

    10        9         8         7         6         5         4        3         2        1

    Margaret Thatcher                                               Indira Ghandi

    Susan Rice is seriously messing up my political science (Where is Groseclose when I need him?)  Rice continues to drive her numbers down and I am forced to extend the scale into the negative range.  Please ask Groseclose if this is allowed or am I dead when the peer review starts.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #9
  10. tabula rasa Inactive
    tabula rasa
    @tabularasa

    James Gawron:Claire,

    Here is my scale for Women in Politics. Sorry if this seems sexist but it is the only way I am able to hold onto sanity with all of the false ideological gender obsessions running loose.

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Margaret Thatcher Indira Ghandi

    Susan Rice is seriously messing up my political science (Where is Groseclose when I need him?) Rice continues to drive her numbers down and I am forced to extend the scale into the negative range. Please ask Groseclose if this is allowed or am I dead when the peer review starts.

    Regards,

    Jim

    I’d rate Golda Meir at 9.5.  Hillary has already demonstrated that she’ll be in the 1-2 range.

    • #10
  11. user_891102 Member
    user_891102
    @DannyAlexander

    #10 TR

    You’re being awfully generous to Golda Meir.

    She rightly stepped down from office due to her failures pertaining to the preventable 1973/Yom Kippur War.

    Of course, her early retirement paved the way for Menachem Begin’s electoral victory in 1977, so even though I would normally rate Golda closer to 6, I suppose it’s not unreasonable to bump that up to about 7.

    • #11
  12. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    I’m beginning to think there is nobody around the POS with an IQ greater than 97. And because of their own deficiencies, they are convinced the rest of the American public is even more ignorant.

    • #12
  13. Totus Porcus Inactive
    Totus Porcus
    @TotusPorcus

    A true strategy document would not be “overtaken by events” two weeks after it is issued.  Unless, of course, you didn’t know what you were doing when you released it.

    • #13
  14. user_82762 Inactive
    user_82762
    @JamesGawron

    tabula rasa:

    James Gawron:Claire,

    Here is my scale for Women in Politics. Sorry if this seems sexist but it is the only way I am able to hold onto sanity with all of the false ideological gender obsessions running loose.

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Margaret Thatcher Indira Ghandi

    Susan Rice is seriously messing up my political science (Where is Groseclose when I need him?) Rice continues to drive her numbers down and I am forced to extend the scale into the negative range. Please ask Groseclose if this is allowed or am I dead when the peer review starts.

    Regards,

    Jim

    I’d rate Golda Meir at 9.5. Hillary has already demonstrated that she’ll be in the 1-2 range.

    tr,

    I hate to admit it but I don’t rate Golda that high.  She was an extremely effective ambassador in the early years when Israel hung by a thread.  She, of course, was adored by the Israeli public.  However, the Prime Minister’s job involves being commander in chief in war.  She did not perform 100% in this.  Also, in economics she continued the Israeli socialist pattern without much new creative free enterprise activity.  Overall I would still give her a 7 especially because of her early work.  (Mrs. Thatcher is 10).

    We are in full agreement about Hillary.  She has all the ingredients of Indira Ghandi.

    Regards,

    Jim

    • #14
  15. neutral observer Thatcher
    neutral observer
    @neutralobserver

    I just think Obama has never come into contact with or been part of any competent organization or effort.  Most of us in our business lives have at one time been part of a project or effort run by competent people or colleagues.  (I know it’s often rare but rarely nonexistent).

    But in academia, what are the goals and how are they measured, if at all?  Certainly not customer satisfaction unless grade inflation is the method of achieving it.

    In politics, what are the goals?  Getting elected, I guess. So he does have that experience with competent (but also ruthless?) people.  Maybe that’s why he uses political advisors for every challenging situation.

    Sorry for the stream of consciousness post…

    • #15
  16. user_891102 Member
    user_891102
    @DannyAlexander

    I’m glad that this Administration has not released a national security strategy document yet.

    This is because what Congress should require first of this Administration is a statement on US national interests.

    (I’ll gladly allow that this demand be made by the *next* Congress, not the current one, so long as the GOP attains control of both chambers.)

    In principle anyway, a national security strategy should emerge based on prior agreement about national-interests assumptions; and no, I don’t hew to the Kissingerian approach of playing national-interests cards close to the vest — it is the American way to get an explicit, public discussion of what these interests are (and debate about what they ought to be) out into the open.

    This is an Administration whose senior White House legal counsel’s wife publicly admires Mao — we need to force these schmoes out into the open about the convictions that would inform any strategy they seek to devise.

    • #16
  17. Totus Porcus Inactive
    Totus Porcus
    @TotusPorcus

    James Gawron:Claire,

    Here is my scale for Women in Politics. Sorry if this seems sexist but it is the only way I am able to hold onto sanity with all of the false ideological gender obsessions running loose.

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Margaret Thatcher Indira Ghandi

    Susan Rice is seriously messing up my political science (Where is Groseclose when I need him?) Rice continues to drive her numbers down and I am forced to extend the scale into the negative range. Please ask Groseclose if this is allowed or am I dead when the peer review starts.

    Regards,

    Jim

    This has to be the “Women in International Politics” scale.  Because otherwise you’ve left no room for Barbara Boxer.

    • #17
  18. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    neutral observer
    I just think Obama has never come into contact with or been part of any competent organization or effort.

    Hey, he was elected to the Illinois Senate! And the United States Senate!

    So… umm… yeah. I got nuttin’.

    • #18
  19. Fricosis Guy Listener
    Fricosis Guy
    @FricosisGuy

    Kay of MT:I’m beginning to think there is nobody around the POS with an IQ greater than 97. And because of their own deficiencies, they are convinced the rest of the American public is even more ignorant.

    Only smart people could be this stupid.

    • #19
  20. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    James Gawron:

    tabula rasa:

    James Gawron:Claire,

    Here is my scale for Women in Politics. Sorry if this seems sexist but it is the only way I am able to hold onto sanity with all of the false ideological gender obsessions running loose.

    10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

    Margaret Thatcher Indira Ghandi

    Susan Rice is seriously messing up my political science (Where is Groseclose when I need him?) Rice continues to drive her numbers down and I am forced to extend the scale into the negative range. Please ask Groseclose if this is allowed or am I dead when the peer review starts.

    Regards,

    Jim

    I’d rate Golda Meir at 9.5. Hillary has already demonstrated that she’ll be in the 1-2 range.

    tr,

    I hate to admit it but I don’t rate Golda that high. She was an extremely effective ambassador in the early years when Israel hung by a thread. She, of course, was adored by the Israeli public. However, the Prime Minister’s job involves being commander in chief in war. She did not perform 100% in this. Also, in economics she continued the Israeli socialist pattern without much new creative free enterprise activity. Overall I would still give her a 7 especially because of her early work. (Mrs. Thatcher is 10).

    We are in full agreement about Hillary. She has all the ingredients of Indira Ghandi.

    Regards,

    Jim

    You have to give her some points for turning the Mossad loose after the olympic killers.

    • #20
  21. Devereaux Inactive
    Devereaux
    @Devereaux

    With her movie-as-an-excuse-for-Benghazi performance, Ms Rice demonstrated that she is merely a bullhorn. ?Why would you suddenly expect more of her.

    • #21
  22. The Party of Hell No! Inactive
    The Party of Hell No!
    @ThePartyofHellNo

    Is not the way to the Nixon/Carter “Bunker” clearly marked? Isn’t there a label on the door in yellow with black stripes “Warning open and enter only in the case of cover-ups and incompetence to SAVE YOUR PRESIDENCY! Effects cannot be guaranteed!” I think inside the bunker there is also a manual – labeled – “Things to do and not to do, when in the bunker.” First page – “Everyone – shut up!” Second page – “You are not as smart and charismatic as you thought and people realize this, so again – Shut Up!” Page three says, “The press NBC, CBS and ABC (Before the Internet – what can I say.) will only go so far until even they can no longer stomach your idiocy. So be prepared, and don’t be shocked if they heap on with your critics they are after all people who have to protect their integrity – your presidency is doomed and they know this. Oh, and shut up!” Page four is the final page, but Nixon and Carter never got to this page – “If you and your “very intelligent advisers – cronies” think an idea is a good idea, it is not, accept it, you do not know what is best-  so do the opposite this is the only way to save your presidency.

    • #22
  23. user_554634 Member
    user_554634
    @MikeRapkoch

    Devereaux:With her movie-as-an-excuse-for-Benghazi performance, Ms Rice demonstrated that she is merely a bullhorn. ?Why would you suddenly expect more of her.

    “Bullhorn” may not be quite the right word.

    • #23
  24. rico Inactive
    rico
    @rico

    Claire Berlinski:[quoting Rice]

    “If we had put it out in February or April or July it would have been overtaken by events two weeks later, in any one of those months.”

    In answer to Claire’s question:

    1> Yes, we do have a foreign policy—lots of ’em actually.

    2> They are valid for about thirteen days, and then we re-write ’em.

    3> We’re not sayin’ what’s in ’em.

    • #24
  25. C. U. Douglas Coolidge
    C. U. Douglas
    @CUDouglas

    The problem I think we are seeing here is one that undergirds the entirety of the Obama Presidency. He is the embodiment of Progressive ideas and policy which at best are a hodge-podge of intellectual pronouncements with general assumptions that over-estimate the success of said ideas when put into practice. The current administrations foreign policy is just another symptom of that.

    It doesn’t help that Obama spent the first years of his presidential candidacy and actual presidency getting his ego stroked. Again, there were general assumptions in play: Bush was a dunce, his underlings nefarious, and his foreign policy a disastrous continuation of American Imperialism. So pursuing Progressive ideals, and by avoiding Bush policy, we would naturally succeed. “Don’t do stupid [stuff],” was just a summary of this: Bush was stupid, his foreign policy therefore stupid – by not doing what he does we automatically come out ahead.

    What Progressives routinely ignore is that human beings are more than a self-contained physics experiment in college, even more than the iconic rats in the maze experiments. Certainly, the Earth is a self-contained environment, but it becomes large enough that making predictions becomes largely guesswork.

    This is why Palin’s lack of foreign policy know-how was a detriment and Obama’s lack was unimportant. Palin is assumed to accept conservative or neo-conservative foreign policy, which for Progressive is flawed theory and thus requires practical successful results. Obama, on the other hand, accepted Progressive theory and thus a lack of experience was unimportant. He had the right ideas and intentions. He could bow to foreign dictators and behave rudely towards allies because in the end, he embraced the right theories. The immediate practicalities were meaningless.

    Only …

    Once again we run into the problem of Progressive theory. It’s faulty, and worse it ignores its own faults. Time and time again we see the failure of this policy. It was an unfortunately slow process. Romney and his advisors could accurately predict what would happen because they accepted a better theory. Sadly, though things can break down fast, they don’t always break down fast enough. The result is Obama’s disaster of a policy based on faulty theories is yielding bitter fruit, and they are left being angry at the world for not conforming to their theories.

    • #25
  26. Ronaldus Maximus Inactive
    Ronaldus Maximus
    @RonaldusMaximus

    Claire, your question could be viewed as a quaint belief in a primitive modality if it wasn’t so racist. A “foreign” policy suggests we live in a world with borders, where “nation-states” have individual  “national” interests.  It is settled science within the political science community that we now live in a world without borders, replaced with the commonality and comity of the international community.

    • #26
  27. user_11047 Inactive
    user_11047
    @barbaralydick

    tabula rasa: I’d rate Golda Meir at 9.5.  Hillary has already demonstrated that she’ll be in the 1-2 range.

    St. Hill that high??

    Do We Even Have a Foreign Policy?

    No.

    • #27
  28. Kay of MT Inactive
    Kay of MT
    @KayofMT

    http://ricochet.com/obamas-foregin-policy/#comment-2679267

    • #28
  29. CuriousKevmo Inactive
    CuriousKevmo
    @CuriousKevmo

    Totus Porcus:A true strategy document would not be “overtaken by events” two weeks after it is issued. Unless, of course, you didn’t know what you were doing when you released it.

    Exactly.  The strategy would/should be enduring.  The tactics might not make it through the week, but if the strategy doesn’t then it isn’t a strategy.

    And Bush was the dumb one because he had a strategery.

    • #29
  30. AIG Inactive
    AIG
    @AIG

    Claire Berlinski: I suppose it’s possible that I’ve lost my sense of proportion and this actually makes perfect sense

    Yes, its possible. In fact, it’s likely.

    While we’re all so busy throwing around political cliches, which however deserved, are devoid of any actual analysis, facts or perspective…here’s some points to ponder:

    1)  In the 8 years of the Bush presidency, the White House released…2 (TWO) [DOS] “National Security Strategy Reports”.

    Strange how GWB was never accused of lacing a “national security strategy’ for the 8 years he was in office.

    2) GWB’s 2006 National Security Strategy Report mentions Russia 17 times. Most of the times Russia is mentioned as a “partner” with whom the US is working on issues such as WTO, democratic reforms, fighting terrorism or pressuring Iran and DPRK to comply. Never is Russia mentioned as a geopolitical threat etc.

    2 years later, of course, Russia invaded Georgia, a close US ally. There was no US response.

    3) China is mentioned 28 times. Most of the times it is mentioned as a “partner” in various causes, WTO and market oriented reforms, and the only indication of anything wrong between US and China relations in strategic terms is the “lack of transparency  in China’s military growth.

    So where is the China strategy from GWB here?

    4) These National Security Strategy Reports mean nothing, because they say nothing of any substance. They can all be summarized in a couple of sentences: we work with partners towards greater stability, prosperity and peace.

    5) Did the US lack a “national security strategy” prior to 1987, which was the first time such a document was released?

    6) Did GWB also say “to hell with congress” when he also didn’t release any national security strategy reports?

    So, how about applying a consistent logic throughout, and apply these same criticism to Republican administrations as well? How does this logic and criticism stand up?

    PS: Of course, the deeper question is, what should the US’s strategy be towards Russia, or China? Because criticizing that a meaningless and pointless document which says nothing, says nothing about our strategy towards these countries…is a “critique” which anyone can make. But it’s a pointless critique. Nor have I see any…alternatives…from the GOP side, other than a few “shoot from the hip” arguments which are far from realistic.

    Nor is it evident that the US has had a different strategy towards these tow countries over the Clinton, Bush or Obama years…other than our strategy to promote democracy, stability and institutional convergence with the West in those countries.

    Nor is it evident why there should be a different strategy towards them.

    • #30
Become a member to join the conversation. Or sign in if you're already a member.