Obama, Bush & Nobel

Everyone’s spilling ink over President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, so I might as well get in on the act.

Most of the conventional wisdom is, I think rarely, pretty spot on. The prize was awarded too early for too little, but given that fact Mr. Obama made the best of an awkward situation.

I think it’s also true that the Nobel committee awarded the prize, in large measure, because Mr. Obama is not George W. Bush.

Mr. Bush was deeply reviled in much of the world, especially Western Europe and Scandinavia. It’s a churlish reason to award a Nobel.

But here’s where I think much of the group-think goes awry.

There’s a meme out there that Mr. Obama is moving rapidly toward a Bushian world-view, that his inexperience and naievete are rapidly being replaced by a more hard-nosed foreign policy.

As evidence, people cite the Afghanistan escalation, and this Nobel acceptance speech:

Yet the world must remember that it was not simply international institutions – not just treaties and declarations – that brought stability to a post-World War II world.

Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.

Many conservatives (and some irked liberals) see the spirit of Dick Cheney lurking behind such rhetoric.

Nonsense.

The truth, largely obscured by decades of conservative speechifying, is that Democrats have always espoused a muscular foreign policy.

For better or worse, Democratic presidents have deployed military forces as frequently as Republican ones.

Ronald Reagan did not, in fact, win the cold war single-handedly.

Harry Truman was arguably the chief architect of America’s anti-Soviet policy.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Kennedy stared down the barrel of a world-ending apocalypse without blinking.

Bill Clinton deployed US military forces to the Balkans in what has come to be seen as a remarkably successful exercise of force; and he did so over the objections of Republicans.

Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is still evolving — there is, as yet, no “Obama Doctrine” — but he shows no sign of falling far from the tree of other Democratic presidents.

One final note.

Some conservatives have suggested that Mr. Obama’s surge in Afghanistan and tougher rhetoric vindicate Mr. Bush and his foreign policy.

The notion is absurd. Foreign policy is about more than ideology or vision. It’s also about execution and judgment.

Whatever value the post-9/11 Bush Doctrine might have had, his legacy is wrecked beyond salvaging.

First by the reckless prosecution of the war in Afghanistan, which was neglected disastrously by the White House. And then by the disastrous decision to invade Iraq.

It’s fair to analyze and criticize — even harshly — Mr. Obama’s performance in the Oval Office.

But it’s time for Republicans to let Mr. Bush go once and for all.