Just who controls our foreign policy?

[natrlron]

You would think that the President controls foreign policy ... his advisors make their recommendations, but the decision is his. But what happens when you have a President who thinks one way and most of his advisors, at least the heavy-hitting ones, think another way? With Obama, the answer is that when the decisions get really hard and important, he retreats and goes with the advise of his advisors ... which is to say the foreign policy and military establishment, otherwise known as the military/industrial complex.

The latest case in point is the U.S.' veto of the U.N. resolution condemning the Israeli settlements as illegal, etc. From the outset of his administration, President Obama has clearly and forcefully stood against Israel’s settlement policy. The U.N. resolution was not much more than a restatement of what the President said in his Cairo speech.

Ambassador Rice said that the veto should not be misconstrued as our now approving of the settlements. This statement misses the point. It isn’t a question of whether we approve or not … clearly the Obama administration doesn’t. It’s a question of whether the President will stand up for what he believes when the going gets tough.

I have no way of knowing, of course, but I have the feeling that the President wanted to hang tough on this issue and at least abstain from voting. But once again, as in case of Afghanistan and in Egypt, the foreign policy and military establishments have held sway and forced him to submit.

The foreign policy and military establishments are stuck in the mindset of the past and their view of strategic interest is very short term. Our autocratic allies in the Middle East will all be gone in the next few years. In their place will be countries that will likely be anti-American because of America’s historic support for those autocrats and its failure to get ahead of the curve on this issue and support the revolution that is occurring in an appropriate way.

It doesn’t have to be this way. But history will undoubtedly repeat itself and the United States, as it has often in the past, will lose the opportunity to be the beacon of freedom it should be and instead will be viewed as the front man for the military/industrial establishment.

For more on this and other issues, see my blog, http://preservingamericangreatness.blogspot.com

[MichiganVote]

1. Whoever we owe money to.

[bbinacan]

2. We have a foreign policy?

who knew

[natrlron]

3. Yes

Everyone is fixated on domestic policy issues, but foreign policy is of critical importance to our future health as a nation. It may seem sometimes like the old "who's on first, what's on second" as it did recently with Egypt where Obama was saying one thing and his underlings were saying another, but there is a foreign policy.

[bbinacan]

4. Damned if I've seen it. n/t