Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

A dose of 1980s foreign policy might be good right now

3/3/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
President Obama may want to pick up the phone. It seems the 1980s are calling, and they want to lend him some foreign policy advice.

Candidates always try to let loose with a memorable zinger during high-profile debates. Ronald Reagan’s condescending and highly effective, “There you go again,” summed up Jimmy Carter’s penchant for big government and provided a pithy one-liner for his campaign.

Lloyd Bentsen gained a similar advantage when he told Dan Quayle, “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” That line has endured even though Bentsen and Michael Dukakis lost the election.

So it was understandable that Barack Obama would try for a similar zinger when, during a 2012 debate with Republican


candidate Mitt Romney, he said, “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back.”
Obama won the election, so many people might not remember that line, but it has all the relevance in the world right now (and thanks to theblaze.com for reminding people about it). He threw it in Romney’s face because Romney had suggested Russia posed a major foreign threat to the United States.

This was a few months after Obama had been caught on an open mic telling Russian President Dmitry Medvedev he needed “space” because after the election he would have “more flexibility.”

Now the president finds himself with little flexibility, indeed. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine puts the United States and its allies in a position of appearing helpless while a nation whose people have been protesting for freedom find themselves at the mercy of a suddenly resurgent Russia.

Russia, it seems, is now the nation’s No. 1 foreign policy concern. North Korea may shoot missiles into the sea, but it is run by a fanatic who has few allies willing to follow him out of the loony bin. Iran poses a regional threat but lately has been willing to negotiate. Al Qaida remains unpredictable and dangerous, but essentially is a loose confederation of outlaws. But Russia can upset the world’s geopolitical map.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., believes Obama’s policies emboldened Vladimir Putin to feel he could take liberties in Ukraine. Speaking to Fox News, he said this started when the administration retreated on siting a missile defense system in Poland and Czechoslovakia. More recently, Obama was effectively outmaneuvered by Putin in Syria, where the president supposedly had drawn a “red line” on the use of chemical weapons, which Syria had crossed with impunity.

“I think Putin is playing chess, and I think we're playing marbles,” Rogers said. “And I don't think it's even close.”

But to be fair, Obama isn’t the first president to be caught off-guard by Putin. George W. Bush was helpless when Putin ordered troops into Georgia in 2008. This was an embarrassing miscalculation, considering Bush once said about Putin, "I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy."

In an excellent piece in National Review, Ron Fournier summed up the naiveté of Bush, Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry by saying, “They're like new guys at a dangerous bar admiring the drapes while their wallets walk out the door.”

Putin sees an opportunity to reassert part of the Russian sphere of influence that was lost when the Soviet Union fell. He has, for more than a decade, posed a dangerous threat to freedom and U.S. foreign policy, even if U.S. leaders never perceived it as such.

The 2012 election was decided a long time ago, so there is no use in dwelling on how Romney clearly saw a reality Obama felt worthy of ridicule. But it is not unreasonable to say the United States should begin to treat Russia as one its biggest foreign threats, and that Obama should understand that the more timid the U.S. appears with its military, the more confident Putin appears to be with his.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.