Burns: Obama is Right
Nicholas Burns started his career as a foreign service officer in 1983. He served in Cairo and Jerusalem, before working in the State Department’s Department of Soviet Affairs. Then in 1990 he shifted onto the National Security Council staff. In 1995 he became Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, and in 1997 he was appointed Ambassador to Greece. In 2001, the George W. Bush administration made him the United States’ Permanent Representative to NATO, and then in 2005 they made him Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs — the number three job in the State Department. This career diplomatic, widely respected and widely experienced, trusted with key missions by the Bush administration, has an article in Newsweek about how yes we should engage in direct, high-level talks with “bad guy” regimes:
Are McCain and Palin correct that America should stonewall its foes? I lived this issue for 27 years as a career diplomat, serving both Republican and Democratic administrations. Maybe that’s why I’ve been struggling to find the real wisdom and logic in this Republican assault against Obama. I’ll bet that a poll of senior diplomats who have served presidents from Carter to Bush would reveal an overwhelming majority who agree with the following position: of course we should talk to difficult adversaries—when it is in our interest and at a time of our choosing.
The more challenging and pertinent question, especially for the McCain-Palin ticket, is the reverse: Is it really smart to declare we will never talk to such leaders? Is it really in our long-term national interest to shut ourselves off from one of the most important and powerful states in the Middle East—Iran—or one of our major suppliers of oil, Venezuela? [...]
The real truth Americans need to embrace is that nearly all of the most urgent global challenges—the quaking financial markets, climate change, terrorism—cannot be resolved by America’s acting alone in the world. Rather than retreat into isolationism, as we have often done in our history, or go it alone as the unilateralists advocated disastrously in the past decade, we need to commit ourselves to a national strategy of smart engagement with the rest of the world. Simply put, we need all the friends we can get. And we need to think more creatively about how to blunt the power of opponents through smart diplomacy, not just the force of arms.
Consider this part of the trend of realists and career practitioners moving toward Democratic Party positions. And, I might add, of Democratic Party positions coming toward the consensus among real experts and professions. It wasn’t inevitable that the Democrats would wind up with a nominee who was willing to take the political risks that articulating these views entails.
22 Responses to “Burns: Obama is Right”
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October 27th, 2008 at 11:06 am
You mean “this America-hating socialist who wants to be friends with terrorists”.
You’re welcome.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:17 am
This was all about race. Um..what? He’s not black? Did you know McCain was a POW?!?
October 27th, 2008 at 11:27 am
The bizarre thing is, the foreign policy criticisms of Obama never made much sense in the first place. I mean, sure, I’m not looking at this from the perspective of an indecided voter, but still. Obama is too appeasing (with Iran) and he’s too aggressive (with Pakistan) – which is it?
McCain’s preconditions obsession seems wrong to me, although it’s more understandable since it’s the status quo. But the Pakistan thing is just dumb. It was based on a quote which sounded too aggressive taken out of context, but in context is well within American status quo and conventional wisdom. (For better or for worse…) If it had remained limited to surrogates or a whisper campaign it might have been effective, but when McCain brought it up in a debate, Obama explained it straightforwardly, and it really is nothing new at all. That left McCain trying to say that Obama’s stance wasn’t wrong but he shouldn’t have said it out loud because that tips the terrorists off or something. Huh?
October 27th, 2008 at 11:30 am
I’m not convinced about there being consensus about any particular policy positions. It is true that all sane people want to keep the levers of power out of republican hands, but that doesn’t mean they agree on what should be done. Merely that everyone agrees that what we’ve been doing doesn’t work.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:36 am
You’re welcome.
Funny, friends say that was Nick Burns’ signature phrase, back in the late 90s when he was a humble computer technician.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:39 am
All this means Matt is that the Republican party will again start up their hatred of the State Department that only slightly cooled under Rice.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:40 am
That was a gutsy article from Burns.
October 27th, 2008 at 11:56 am
That’s a good point, Yglesias.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I don’t think you meant to imply that Nick Burns has “moved toward Democratic Party positions”, did you?
Burns is a career diplomat who also happens not to be driven by right wing ideology. I guess that makes him a professional career diplomat, as opposed to a partisan hack. Rare bird. Of course he believes in diplomacy. It was gutsy, given his political orientation, to express his belief in partisan and candidate terms. But I don’t believe he has been transformed by the Obama candidacy or foreign policy positions.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Pay particular attention to McCain and Palin arguing this point.
It’s kind of bizarre. I think we know what preconditions means, based on the Bush policy of not talking to people until they agreed to give in completely. But McCain seems rather confused on this point. Palin most certainly is.
It appears that they’re just arguing this for the sake of being against Obama, even though most of the time when they’re arguing the point they’re advocating the Obama position.
I just think it’s campaign rhetoric. I’m not sure McCain or Palin really actually understand the issue, or if they do they’re pretending otherwise to stir up rhetoric that fires up the base. I’m sure Palin has no clue. McCain might just not be telling us what he really thinks.
The odd thing is, while it’s popular with the base, it’s a disasterous position for appealing to the middle. So I don’t understand what on earth they’re trying to accomplish.
October 27th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Adams, I think the sentence following the one you quoted is the key. It isn’t so much a matter of individual Republicans (or Dems) changing their minds as of the foreign policy establishment realigning. And this realignment is only possible because Obama made his first major foreign policy stand, not out of political calculation, but on the merits as he saw them.
October 27th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
McCain and the Repugs are pinin’ for the cold war. That is basically what a diplomatic freeze comes down to. They want us to act like Iran and Venezuela are so evil and incorrigible — fighting proxy wars (in the neocons’ alternate universe, anyway), always looking to undermine the noble, good US and her allies. How, oh how, can we ever contemplate talking with such irredemably nefarious states?
I think McCain has always bought in to this way of thinking, and Palin certainly is down with it.
October 27th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
And, I might add, of Democratic Party positions coming toward the consensus among real experts and professions.
What on earth are you talking about?
Democratic administrations since FDR have consistently been the playground of the technocrats. Republicans rely on ideology. What Democratic Party positions are you referring to that have been so distant from the consensus of “experts”?
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