Help me out here. President Obama immediately meddles in the affairs of Honduras denouncing a military coup the intent of which is to preserve the countrys constitution but when it comes to Irans fraudulent election and the violent repression of demonstrators who wanted their votes counted the president initially vacillates and equivocates.
Are we expected to accept this as a consistent foreign policy? Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was reluctant to call the removal of President Manuel Zelaya a coup if for no other reason than it would stop U.S. aid flowing to the impoverished Central American nation.
The fingerprints (or in this case the boot prints) of the Castro brothers Venezuelas dictator Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua are all over this. If one is known by the company one keeps the specter of the Castros and their protege dictators joining President Obama in denouncing the Honduran military coup is not reassuring. Clearly Zelaya was the choice of the dictators to help spread revolution to Americas back door. The coup is a setback for them though perhaps temporary depending on how much pressure world opinion which can be as fickle as some politicians marriage vows can assert.
One of the flaws in U.S. policy in this and in the Bush administration has been our commitment to elections as an end and not a means. Elections can put scoundrels in power and the election that elevates them is often the last one a country sees until the miscreants are overthrown. That has been true of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006 Germany under Hitler as well as Ortega and Chavez among others. The United States should be supporting electoral processes that put people in office who are committed to the rule of law and representative government.
The threat by Chavez to send his troops into Honduras ought to be another signal to the Obama administration that thugs cant be made nice by talking to them. So far the worlds tyrants have been unresponsive to Obamas offer of a new start and a pushing of the reset button which Secretary Clinton famously offered Russias Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The word on the device she gave Lavrov was meant to say reset in Russian instead roughly translated the word meant overcharge. Overly optimistic might be a better word to describe this nascent administrations approach to bad guys. They are getting the message but its a different one than President Obama hoped to send. The message is that Obama is weak and can be had.
It is one thing for a president to be liked but in a dangerous world with dictators who have or wish to acquire nuclear weapons and by these and other means destroy the United States it is better that an American president be feared.
Does this administration have a Plan B for dealing with thugs and dictators should their rules of social and diplomatic etiquette fail to produce their announced objectives? Suppose Kim Jong-il follows through on his threat to launch a missile at Hawaii on July 4? If he does and America shoots it down what happens then? If missile defense fails (the administration and Congress are cutting the budget for a missile shield) and the missile hits Hawaii and kills a lot of people what then?
Will there be strong denunciations UN resolutions or a rapid and devastating retaliation? Given this administrations commitment to dialogue Im not betting on retaliation. More like handwringing and wondering aloud what we might have done to make them hate us as we heard from many leftists following Sept. 11.
The administration is being tested on several fronts as Vice President Biden predicted. Honduras is one of many challenges. Will the administration meet them or retreat? We may know sooner than many of us might expect.
Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the book Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America.
Help me out here. President Obama immediately meddles in the affairs of Honduras denouncing a military coup the intent of which is to preserve the countrys constitution but when it comes to Irans fraudulent election and the violent repression of demonstrators who wanted their votes counted the president initially vacillates and equivocates.
Are we expected to accept this as a consistent foreign policy? Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was reluctant to call the removal of President Manuel Zelaya a coup if for no other reason than it would stop U.S. aid flowing to the impoverished Central American nation.
The fingerprints (or in this case the boot prints) of the Castro brothers Venezuelas dictator Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua are all over this. If one is known by the company one keeps the specter of the Castros and their protege dictators joining President Obama in denouncing the Honduran military coup is not reassuring. Clearly Zelaya was the choice of the dictators to help spread revolution to Americas back door. The coup is a setback for them though perhaps temporary depending on how much pressure world opinion which can be as fickle as some politicians marriage vows can assert.
One of the flaws in U.S. policy in this and in the Bush administration has been our commitment to elections as an end and not a means. Elections can put scoundrels in power and the election that elevates them is often the last one a country sees until the miscreants are overthrown. That has been true of Hamas in the Palestinian legislative elections of 2006 Germany under Hitler as well as Ortega and Chavez among others. The United States should be supporting electoral processes that put people in office who are committed to the rule of law and representative government.
The threat by Chavez to send his troops into Honduras ought to be another signal to the Obama administration that thugs cant be made nice by talking to them. So far the worlds tyrants have been unresponsive to Obamas offer of a new start and a pushing of the reset button which Secretary Clinton famously offered Russias Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The word on the device she gave Lavrov was meant to say reset in Russian instead roughly translated the word meant overcharge. Overly optimistic might be a better word to describe this nascent administrations approach to bad guys. They are getting the message but its a different one than President Obama hoped to send. The message is that Obama is weak and can be had.
It is one thing for a president to be liked but in a dangerous world with dictators who have or wish to acquire nuclear weapons and by these and other means destroy the United States it is better that an American president be feared.
Does this administration have a Plan B for dealing with thugs and dictators should their rules of social and diplomatic etiquette fail to produce their announced objectives? Suppose Kim Jong-il follows through on his threat to launch a missile at Hawaii on July 4? If he does and America shoots it down what happens then? If missile defense fails (the administration and Congress are cutting the budget for a missile shield) and the missile hits Hawaii and kills a lot of people what then?
Will there be strong denunciations UN resolutions or a rapid and devastating retaliation? Given this administrations commitment to dialogue Im not betting on retaliation. More like handwringing and wondering aloud what we might have done to make them hate us as we heard from many leftists following Sept. 11.
The administration is being tested on several fronts as Vice President Biden predicted. Honduras is one of many challenges. Will the administration meet them or retreat? We may know sooner than many of us might expect.
Cal Thomas is co-author (with Bob Beckel) of the book Common Ground: How to Stop the Partisan War That is Destroying America.
