What’s most disturbing to me about Barack Obama’s close
relationship with Jeremiah Wright is what it suggests about how he
would make decisions on crucial foreign policy matters.
In his speech, Obama argued that while he in no way excuses any
of Wright’s offensive statements, it is important to view them in
the larger context of a black community that has suffered from
oppression in America. But it’s quite easy to see how Obama could
translate this type of attitude to international affairs.
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance, Obama has
already
declared that “nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian
people.” Given his attitude toward Wright, it’s quite likely he’s
of the mindset that Palestinian terrorism has to be viewed within
the prism of the suffering of the population. And if he’s willing
to embrace Wright, warts and all, is it that far off to wonder if
he’d at least be willing to view the likes of Hamas in a more
favorable light than they deserve? Would he be assuaged by
Arafat-esque double talk in which the terrorist group makes phony
overtures of peace while continuing to pursue violence? This isn’t
just about Israel. I was at a townhall meeting last year in which
Obama embraced
the view that there are only 10,000 “hardcore” terrorists in
the world, and they are able to gain new recruits because of
economic hardship. His solution was to double foreign aid.
Obama’s defenders would argue that it’s a wild stretch on my
part to equate his attitude toward Wright to his views on
terrorism, but herein lies the central challenge in assessing
Obama’s candidacy. Because he has such a thin public record, we
have very little basis on which to judge how he would govern as
president. As a result, we are forced to make educated guesses by
looking at statements he’s made and evaluating the company he
keeps.
The biggest fear I have always had with an Obama administration
is that he doesn’t have much experience, so he would draw on what
little he does have. Unfortunately, very little, if any, of that
experience is relevant to being commander in chief during a time of
war. When I heard him speak at the AIPAC conference last year,
Obama declared that, “One of the enemies we’re going to have to
fight, is not just terrorists, it’s not just Hezbollah, it’s not
just Hamas, it’s also cynicism.” So, when pressed to make a
statement on one of the most complex and protracted conflicts of
the past century, his reflex was to frame the issue in the terms of
his standard stump speech about how we can solve any problem by
replacing cynicism with hope. He could have just as easily been
talking about passing universal health care or making college more
affordable.
If you were to look at Obama’s record in the most favorable
light, you could paint the portrait of a man who is serious about
trying to bring people together. A man who united different groups
and churches around a single purpose as a community organizer, a
man who gave a fair hearing to liberal and conservative viewpoints
as a constitutional law instructor, a legislator who worked with
Republicans in the Illinois state senate to pass a bill requiring
the videotaping of confessions in capital cases, and a U.S. Senator
who cooperated with staunch conservative Tom Coburn on earmarks
transparency.
In all of those instances, Obama worked together with people who
may not have agreed on everything, but of whom he could at least
assume good faith. However, when you’re dealing with terrorists and
our other enemies on the world stage, you cannot assume the same
level of good faith. And yet Obama has already promised to meet,
without preconditions, in the first year of his administration,
with a rogues gallery of international dictators. His willingness
to embrace a hatemonger like Wright because of the man’s manifest
suffering just adds another piece to a rather disturbing puzzle.
