At White House, liberal hawks ascend
With his decision to elevate Susan Rice to become his national security advisor and the nomination of Samantha Power as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, President Obama is not simply rewarding the loyalty of two women who have backed him from the start. Nor is he merely increasing the diversity of his foreign policy team. Rather, their promotions hints at a new source of fireworks in a growing foreign policy battle in the Obama administration. Liberal hawks and doves in the White House and the Democratic Party are struggling for hearts and minds over whether it makes sense to intervene in Syria and to attack Iran.
Democratic hawks believe that America has a crusading mission to champion humanitarian intervention. Their credo is exemplified by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's reference to America as the "indispensable nation," one that should intervene abroad whenever and wherever necessary to defend the oppressed. Count among the hawks New York Times commentator Bill Keller, who has been demanding intervention in Syria; Anne-Marie Slaughter, former director of policy planning at the State Department; and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a staunch liberal who heads the Senate Armed Services Committee and is urging limited military strikes on Syria.
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The conflict between the two camps is probably best understood as the latest installment in a running dispute over the lessons of the Vietnam War. Vietnam was originally promoted by Cold War liberals such as Dean Acheson and Dean Rusk. A younger generation, led by Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.), said that the U.S. had lost its way in Southeast Asia and was becoming an international bad guy. The warriors recoiled. Some became neoconservatives and left for the GOP; others remained behind to try to stage an insurgency inside the party.
Ever since, the Democratic Party has been divided when it comes to foreign policy. During the 1970s and '80s, the doves mostly had the upper hand, decrying U.S. militarism everywhere, from the invasion of Grenada to the Nicaraguan revolution. It may have been emotionally satisfying, but the Democrats also looked weak on foreign policy, a vulnerability that Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush exploited.
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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-heilbrunn-obama-rice-power-20130607,0,4704730.story
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