Obama Abroad

On Aug. 1, 2007 Barack Obama uttered a sentence that has brought him much grief: "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and [Pakistani] President Musharraf won't act, we will." At the time, virtually all of his Democratic opponents lambasted him for being reckless. As late as their debate in Ohio last week, Hillary Clinton charged that "he basically threatened to bomb Pakistan."

Yet neither in this speech (a densely detailed address at the Woodrow Wilson Center) nor in any other has the candidate mentioned "bombing" Pakistan. It is possible that the antiterrorist operation he envisaged might include an attack from the air. But that is not what he said.

Martin Kozlowski

The extraordinary recoil from Mr. Obama's perfectly sensible statement reminded me of the Clinton administration's quivers about any retaliating against al Qaeda. For a quick reprise of these inhibitions, skim the 9/11 Commission report: One high official in the small circle dealing with tracking the bin Laden brotherhood insisted that the terrorists be brought in alive; another was committed to giving them a fair trial, although a cabinet member feared a jury wouldn't convict; still another official objected that there might ensue some "collateral damage" even from a targeted attack.

The fact is that Hillary Clinton has never answered the red phone at 3 a.m., or any other time, for that matter. And Bill's record on this matter is not reassuring, either.

So what are Mr. Obama's inclinations in foreign policy? Listening to him carefully, I find his saber-rattling about American counterterrorism within Pakistan's borders not at all out of keeping with his larger thinking about the challenges beyond our borders. Put briefly, I would say that he is as tough as he is reasonable.

"This is the wild frontier of our globalized world," Mr. Obama has said of the territory spanning Pakistan and Afghanistan. "There are tribes that see borders as nothing more than lines on a map, and governments as forces that come and go. There are blood ties deeper than alliances of convenience, and pockets of extremism that follow religion to violence." No naïveté there.

Porous frontiers and states that are not nations are threats to the people who inhabit their ambits and to the nations which may be forced to host many of them as immigrants. No one should grow up thinking that terror is normal, as many now do. This is one reason Mr. Obama insisted that, whatever Mr. Musharraf might think, the U.S. could not be inhibited from striking wherever terror was hiding.

In his August speech, Mr. Obama specifically criticized the administration for failing to strike an al Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005. Nevertheless, in January of this year Hellfire missiles from a CIA Predator drone did kill an al Qaeda senior commander in Pakistan. This fit Mr. Obama's operational model, the one that provoked so much controversy: good intelligence on a worthy target, whether Mr. Musharraf agreed or not. Mr. Musharraf was told, the Washington Post reported, when the operation was already underway.

I do not doubt that a military response to al Qaeda's new entrenchments in northwest Pakistan may one day demand something larger than a drone and its missiles. And I have no reason to believe that a President Obama would be inhibited from meeting the demands of that day.

What about the conflict between Israel and Palestine? Many Americans in the policy and opinion elites blindly believe Israel is at fault. This does not appear to be Mr. Obama's belief.

He has made clear again and again that it is not diplomatic ingenuity or American pressure on the Jewish state that is needed to temper the conflict and end it. It is, rather, a transformation in the tempestuous minds of the Palestinian polity, to accept finally the Jewish presence and sovereignty in the land. The Israeli body politic long ago acceded to the idea of a Palestinian state, as Mr. Obama points out again and again.

He has no panaceas for Israel and the Palestinians, which is right. He certainly believes in the peace process, and that American intercession can be helpful and violence-averting. This, too, is right. And like any believer in the peace process and the two-state solution, I imagine that he will insist also upon Israeli concessions, which anyway are inevitable.

There are people in his entourage whose feelings about these matters make me anxious -- who devote most of their thinking about Israeli-Palestinian peace to the devising of axioms and formulas on how to bring the Israelis to heel. Such men and women appear in every campaign and in every administration. But it is the president who counts.

My own qualms about Mr. Obama reflect his enchantment with negotiation. So far he has not allowed that there are conflicts in which negotiation is ipso facto futile, and conflicts in which there may be strategic consequences from the cult of talk. Talking certainly didn't work with Hitler and Stalin, although Western leaders actually negotiated with these tyrants face-to-face. Our partners in those evil days traduced every agreement they made. The same was true of diplomacy with Yasser Arafat.

Mr. Obama says he would be open to a session with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And Mr. Obama's Karen Hughes, Samantha Power, says, "we need to get in a room with him -- if only to convey grave displeasure about his tactics, regionally and internationally."

Maybe. But the president of the United States has many ways to communicate his opinion of a foreign leader. And when Mr. Ahmadinejad begs to differ, or expresses to the American president his low view of him, or walks out of the room, what then? Not military action, certainly, but the diplomatic option will have been squandered.

I have no doubt that this idée fixe of the Democrats -- their ardent faith in the salvific power of diplomacy -- will be tried and found wanting. Still, we shouldn't forget that many Republicans (Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar, for instance) share the yen to chat. And didn't James Baker talk endlessly with Saddam Hussein, to no point except the murder of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites? A case can be made for sitting down with our enemies -- as long as we understand that they are our enemies.

So Barack Obama's belief in the power of speech worries me in the realm of foreign affairs. But otherwise he has won my confidence. Unlike the isolationists in the guise of idealists, or the cheerleaders for violence who pretend to be pacifists and populists, Mr. Obama is a patriot of the old cadence and the old convictions, and not easily pushed around. If he is elected president, he will disappoint many of his supporters, and surprise many of his detractors.

Nobody needs to worry that Zbigniew Brzezinski will be made secretary of state. I would even hazard the guess that the chief at Foggy Bottom will be the clear-thinking Dennis Ross, once an avid "peace processor," who has learned with the rest of us that processing peace is not an easy task.

"And I want to say one other thing. I know I should be mindful of New York every waking minute, but once in a while, just once in a while, you slip my mind. [Laughter] Now, this morning I went out running, as I do every morning, and I wore a cap that I was given the other night when we showed a wonderful movie at the White House about a young man who overcomes enormous odds to fulfill his lifetime dream of playing football at Notre Dame.

Audience members. "Rudy"!

Robert Creamer

 

Clinton's "Big State" Myth: Why Barack Obama Remains the Most Electable Democrat This Fall

Posted March 5, 2008 | 05:48 PM (EST)

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1) Most of the "Big States" she has won are not battleground states in the fall. New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and California are solid blue states where Obama would do as well or better than Clinton in a general election against McCain.

2) Of the states she's won so far, the big exception to this rule is Ohio. Ohio is in fact a critical battleground state where Hillary has demonstrated that she has a leg up among lower income whites and older voters. But the polling also shows that in a general election, Barack offsets this advantage in Ohio among young voters and college-educated independents. In a McCain-Clinton match up the later group could gravitate heavily to McCain in Ohio.

In an Ohio general election, Obama's ability to attract independents and mobilize young and minority voters will trump Clinton's advantages among non-college whites -- a group that will break heavily for either Barack or Hillary against the "free trade" McCain.

Just remember, in Ohio right now, "national security" is a job. The economy and trade -- not "national security" -- will almost certainly continue to be the overriding issues for non-college whites in Ohio this November.

3) Obama puts in play a panoply of states where Clinton would have a much tougher time. Obama could potentially win Virginia (13 electoral votes), Missouri (11 electoral votes) and even Mississippi (whose population is 40% African American -- 6 electoral votes). He would be considerably more competitive than Clinton in other battleground states like Colorado (9 electoral votes), Iowa (7 electoral votes), Wisconsin (10 electoral votes), Minnesota (10 electoral votes) and Michigan (17 electoral votes). The same goes for New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) -- a state where McCain will work hard to woo independents among whom Obama did much better than Clinton in this year's primary.

4) Even in states where Clinton could make a case for some advantages relative to Obama, these "advantages" are far from certain. Take Florida where she might assert an advantage among Latinos. Florida also has up to 500,000 newly enfranchised ex-felons -- many of whom are African American. The problem with these new voters is mobilization, not persuasion. Getting them registered and voting will be hard. Obama would obviously turn out many more African American mobilizable voters than Clinton. And when it comes to Latino voters, Obama's clear record on immigration contrasts well with McCain who has thrown Latino immigration reform aspirations under the bus in order to pander to his party's right wing.

5) Obama has the one quality that allows him to simultaneously motivate mobilizable base voters and appeal to persuadable independents -- the ability to inspire. This quality allows him to broaden the appeal of his candidacy to swing voters. At the same time it allows him to expand the electorate with new young and African American voters who otherwise simply wouldn't vote. Clinton is the anti-inspiration candidate. She will have a much harder time both expanding the electorate and appealing to swing voters. Obama's ability to inspire -- by itself -- makes him a much stronger general election candidate.

6) Finally, let's remember that the base of the Republican Party -- cultural conservatives -- is not so wild about McCain. They are accepting McCain with about as much enthusiasm as children take cough medicine. They know they need him, but they really aren't happy about it. The one thing that could energize the Republican base is their inveterate hatred for Hillary Clinton. Clinton would mobilize right-wing base voters the same way that hatred for Bush motivated Democrats in 2006. Why should we help galvanize the Republican base by nominating Hillary Clinton when we have another great choice?

All of these factors are born out in the consistent survey results that show Obama polls six to ten points better than Clinton against John McCain.

Clinton will have a difficult to impossible time winning the pledged delegate battle. Her only path to the nomination is convincing Super Delegates that she is the most electable. That dog won't hunt.

Robert Creamer is a long time political organizer and strategist and author of the new book Listen to Your Mother: Stand Up Straight. How Progressives Can Win. The book is available at Amazon.com.

By ROB GILLIES
Associated Press

TORONTO — Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff said someone in Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign gave Canada back-channel assurances that her harsh words about the North American Free Trade Agreement were for political show, according to a report by the Canadian Press.

The report comes just days after a Canadian government memo stated Barack Obama's senior economic adviser told Canadian officials that the Illinois senator's own comments about NAFTA were for "political positioning." The release of that memo helped Clinton defeat Obama decisively in Tuesday's Democratic primary in Ohio, where the trade treaty is unpopular.

On Wednesday, the Canadian Press quoted an unidentified source as saying that Ian Brodie, Harper's chief of staff, made the comment last week to a crew for Canada's CTV television network during a press gathering to discuss Canada's budget. According to a person with knowledge of the incident, the source was a CTV journalist.

The Canadian Press story said a CTV reporter asked Brodie about remarks by Clinton and Obama that they would seek to renegotiate NAFTA.

"He said someone from Clinton's campaign is telling the embassy to take it with a grain of salt. ... That someone called us and told us not to worry," the journalist quoted Brodie as saying, according to the report.

On Thursday, Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said the campaign "flatly denied" the suggestion that a Clinton adviser had told Canadian government officials to take the candidate's tough talk on NAFTA with "a grain of salt."

Brodie did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment.

"Ian Brodie is alleged to have made an offhand comment about a rumor to a reporter. He does not recall saying it," Sandra Buckler, a spokeswoman for Harper, said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Some Democrats, as well as Canadian opposition parties, have accused Harper's Conservative government of meddling in the U.S. primary elections — in which Obama is in a close race with Clinton for the Democratic Party's nomination.

In Ottawa, Canadian opposition parties demanded Brodie be fired.

Harper told lawmakers in Parliament that the government would investigate the entire affair, referring to the alleged leaks about both the Clinton and Obama campaigns.

"We're going to investigate this entire matter and take whatever action that is deemed necessary based on the facts that we are able to discover," Harper said, a day after he called the release of the memo unfair and possibly illegal.

Canada's New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton blasted the alleged leaks.

"There can be no doubt about it: The leak from within the Canadian government has had an impact now on the American elections," Layton said. "That is about the worst thing a country could do to another country — to have an effect on their democratic process."

The U.S. ambassador to Canada called the release of the memo "unfortunate."

"The prime minister yesterday stated that it was regretful that it happened and it shouldn't have happened," Ambassador David Wilkins told the AP on Thursday. "Now we need to get it behind us and move forward and continue to actuate the positive and build on this great relationship we do have."

Both Obama and Clinton said last week they would use the threat of pulling out of NAFTA to persuade Canada and Mexico to negotiate more protections for workers and the environment in the agreement.

NAFTA is unpopular among many blue collar workers in the United States who say it has cost American jobs.

A CTV report last week by Washington-based journalist Tom Clark said that both the Obama and Clinton campaigns gave Canada assurances over NAFTA. But the report led with Obama, and all the attention since then has been on his campaign.

Clark told the AP he had multiple sources on his story including a senior official at the Canadian embassy in Washington.

His TV report said a senior member of the Obama campaign contacted Canada's ambassador in Washington and told him any tough talk on NAFTA would just be campaign rhetoric. The Canadian embassy and the Obama campaign have both denied this.

Clark's report also quoted sources as saying the Clinton campaign made "indirect contact" with the Canadian government to express their support for NAFTA. The Clinton campaign has denied this too.

A 1,300-word memo obtained by the AP on Sunday, widely circulated within the Canadian government, said Obama's senior economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, told Canadian officials in Chicago that the debate over free trade in the Democratic presidential campaign was "political positioning."

Goolsbee later said his comments were misinterpreted, and Obama denied offering the Canadians any such ideas. "Nobody reached out to the Canadians to try to assure them of anything," Obama told reporters Monday in Texas.

Harper earlier denied his chief of staff leaked that memo, but didn't say anything about the CTV's report last week.

ABC last week reported that Brodie was Clark's source. Earlier this week, Buckler, the Harper spokeswoman, said "Brodie does not recall discussing the matter."

On Monday, Clinton seized upon the memo to criticize Obama.

"I think that's the kind of difference between talk and action that I've been talking about," Clinton told reporters while campaigning in Ohio. "It raises questions about Senator Obama coming to Ohio and giving speeches against NAFTA."