A truly amazing new analysis from the Associated Press argues that Barack Obama has challenged, or rather, "gored an ox" that represents "the deeply held belief that the United States does not make mistakes in dealings with either friends or foes." I was not aware that there was an official policy on U.S. diplomatic infallibility (Does the president, like the Pope, only get to invoke the privilege ex cathedra?), but apparently there was and now there is not. Some of the hugely controversial things the president has done, according to the article, to demonstrate this massive change:
—Admitted to Europeans that America deserves at least part of the blame for the world's financial crisis because it did not regulate high-flying and greedy Wall Street gamblers.
—Told the Russians he wants to reset relations that fell to Cold War-style levels under his predecessor, George W. Bush.
—Asked NATO for more help in the fight in Afghanistan, and, not getting much, did not castigate alliance partners.
—Lifted some restrictions on Cuban Americans' travel to their communist homeland and eased rules on sending wages back to families there.
—Shook hands with, more than once, and accepted a book from Hugo Chavez, the virulently anti-American leader of oil-rich Venezuela.
—Said America's appetite for illegal drugs and its lax control of the flow of guns and cash to Mexico were partly to blame for the drug-lord-inspired violence that is rattling the southern U.S. neighbor.
Sometimes I forget the hoops one is forced to jump through in justifying America's deeply weird foreign-policy consensus. Who knew it was a big deal to admit that Americans' desire to buy drugs might have something to do with drug cartels trying to sell them here? I'm also sure a stern castigation would have encouraged our European allies to do everything we asked of them in Afghanistan. I seem to recall Donald Rumsfeld's pro-castigation policy had a lot of success getting the Europeans on board in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
The real story amid all this ox-goring is that basic common sense from the administration -- 'Our relations with Russia have recently worsened. I would like to improve them.' -- is seen by a longtime diplomatic reporter as a paradigm shift on par with Mikhail Gorbachev's efforts to liberalize the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.
-- Tim Fernholz
