Obama: Not the Balm for Anti-Americanism We Were Promised

NRO ^ | September 12, 2012 | Jim Geraghty

[Unam Sanctam]

Remember the expectations for how Barack Obama could transform U.S. relations with the Muslim world once in office?

Andrew Sullivan, writing in The Atlantic, July 2007:

"What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivial—it’s central to an effective war strategy. The war on Islamist terror, after all, is two-pronged: a function of both hard power and soft power. We have seen the potential of hard power in removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein. We have also seen its inherent weaknesses in Iraq, and its profound limitations in winning a long war against radical Islam. The next president has to create a sophisticated and supple blend of soft and hard power to isolate the enemy, to fight where necessary, but also to create an ideological template that works to the West’s advantage over the long haul. There is simply no other candidate with the potential of Obama to do this. Which is where his face comes in."

"Consider this hypothetical. It’s November 2008. A young Pakistani Muslim is watching television and sees that this man—Barack Hussein Obama—is the new face of America. In one simple image, America’s soft power has been ratcheted up not a notch, but a logarithm. A brown-skinned man whose father was an African, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, who attended a majority-Muslim school as a boy, is now the alleged enemy. If you wanted the crudest but most effective weapon against the demonization of America that fuels Islamist ideology, Obama’s face gets close. It proves them wrong about what America is in ways no words can."

And here we are:

[Ohioan]

The shallow stupidity of the Andrew Sullivan piece is indeed noteworthy. It was not based upon a rational understanding of any of the things that constitute a people; anything that really pertains to conflicting interests, purposes & identities. Indeed, the idea that America would elect one only accidentally even an "American" in name, was hardly calculated to increase positive respect for Americans.

As has been noted elsewhere, in several threads, the Iranian Hostage Crisis ended, when Carter--another apologetic American--left office to be succeeded by that proud traditionally minded American, Ronald Reagan.

William Flax

[Iron Munro]

"What does he offer? First and foremost: his face."

Barack "Bo Jangles" Obama

[MrB]

0bama is a Muslim sympathizer. He has outright stated as much.

This doesn’t “salve our relations with Muslims”, it emboldens them in their quest for supremacy.

[The Great RJ]

Obama has showed nothing but weakness, a lack of resolve and vacillation in the face of crisis. Despite his bows to Muslim potentates and pandering to Muslims he is regarded as a push over by radical Islamists.

[Vendome]

” The continuing occupation of Palestinian lands and U.S. interference in the Arab world are held to be the greatest obstacles to peace and stability in the Middle East.”

Really?

GTH

Same old synthetic and tired refrain.