Via Jon Chait, Ross Douthat talks about how Obama may guard his right flank with foreign policy:
Here's a fearless prediction: On an awful lot of issues, the Obama foreign policy will end cutting to the right of Bill Clinton's foreign policy, which was already more center-left than left. Even with the GOP brand in the toilet, Republicans are still trusted as much or more than Dems on foreign policy, mostly for somewhat nebulous "toughness" reasons. So why give the Right a chance to play what's just about its only winning card, when you can satisfy your base with a phased withdrawal from Iraq that's scheduled to happen anyway while waxing hawkish on Pakistan, Afghanistan ... and who knows, maybe Iran as well? (I have a sneaking suspicion that a President Obama will be slightly more likely to authorize airstrikes against Iran than a President McCain would have been.) Meanwhile, on detainee policy, wiretapping, etc. you can earn plaudits from liberals for showily abandoning the worst excesses of the Bush era, while actually holding on to most of the post-9/11 powers that the Bushies claimed. Obama already made fans of Niall Ferguson and Eli Lake; by 2012, I wouldn't be surprised if he's converted Max Boot as well.
And with his right flank safely guarded (assuming, of course, that Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iran doesn't become his Administration's Iraq), he'll have that much more political for the big-ticket goals that will guarantee his place in the liberal pantheon - universal health care, a New Deal for energy policy, a succession of young liberal judges who will tilt the Supreme Court leftward for a generation, etc. Among right-wing hawks, there will be strange-new-respectful talk about Obama's centrist instincts, his Scoop Jackson-ish tendencies, his Reaganesque blend of idealism, pragmatism and strength. Meanwhile, the rest of the right-wing coalition will be getting steamrolled.
I'm not sure Ross is right here -- pun intended -- or rather, I think he's doing a little revisionist history. For starters, the two keystones of Obama's foreign policy that have drawn the most attention, withdrawing from Iraq and negotiating with states like Iran, are pretty much anathema to folks like Max Boot, and don't really represent the hard right at all. I'm not sure where Ross gets the idea that Obama will be more likely to launch missiles at Iran than McCain except that, having lost the presidential race, McCain won't be launching missiles at anyone. Of course, Obama has made clear that he won't tolerate a nuclear Iran, but it's equally clear that he's going to do everything he can -- and that Bush or McCain wouldn't do -- to make sure it doesn't come to that. Afghanistan may be the only example where Ross's analogy does hold true -- Obama has committed, thus far, to a pretty hawkish strategy of increasing troop strength. But I expect a lot of debate over that decision in the coming six months.
But if Ross is right, then I'm worried. Anyone else remember a liberal president who used military adventurism to shore up his right flank while enacting broad progressive domestic legislation? Why, Lyndon Johnson, of course, who inherited Vietnam from his predecessor and worried constantly that he'd appear weak even as it became increasingly clear that being in Vietnam was a bad policy. Eventually, as the story goes, it destroyed his presidency. Ross recognizes that Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iran could become Obama's Iraq, and that would be disastrous to both his domestic agenda and his presidency. The problem is that Obama will create a foreign policy quagmire if if sticks to right-wing foreign policy choices. It's in his best interest to apply his pragmatic liberalism across the board. For more on what that means, check out Spencer's cover from last spring.
--Tim Fernholz
