http://www.washingtonpac.com/

Morris J. Amitay Column – February 1, 2010

Obama: The First Year

It is now a full year since a young freshman Senator took the Presidential Oath of Office only a few hundred yards from my office. It is fitting that the year ended with the resounding repudiation of this President by Massachusetts. I had hoped that my trepidations about an Obama presidency would not be realized. But when the alarm bells started ringing, commentators, for example, such as Charles Krauthammer, Fouad Ajami, Barry Rubin, Claudia Rosett (and for a good chuckle, Mark Steyn), highlighted Obama’s shortcomings both at home and abroad with great eloquence and perception. So my own reflections are based not only on a half-century of political involvement, but with an emphasis on Israel’s future security.



What we have seen so far is an overly ambitious but woefully inexperienced President unwilling to face reality in dealing with the rest of the world, and unable to distinguish clearly between friends and foes. His first year at the helm of state fits well with Churchill’s definition of a second marriage: “a triumph of hope over experience”. And in his approach toward Islamist terrorism, a triumph of political correctness over resolute action.



We have seen this particularly in the Obama Administration’s policies toward Iran, Israel, the peace process, and enhancing our national security. To put it bluntly, with the possible exception of the mini-surge in Afghanistan, President Obama still doesn’t entirely get it. The realities he has had to face this past year have not fit neatly into his stated desire to change, not only how “business is done in Washington”, but also to his self-proclaimed mission to change how nations should deal with each other. In order to accomplish this change, Obama has been acting, according to John Bolton, like the first “post-American President” with his belief that we “need only be restrained, patient and deferential,” in approaching our adversaries. If you add to his faulty conceptual framework, his dubious past associations (Wright, Ayers, Khalidi&#8230, and his very thin résumé before assuming our highest office, you have a very disturbing picture of a person unprepared to lead our nation in very troubling times.



Despite misgivings many have over the directions of his policies, there is the widespread assumption of Obama’s superior intellect, given his Columbia and Harvard pedigrees. I have been able to engage some of Obama’s peers at these two institutions (from both of which I graduated) to get their personal impressions of Obama as a student. Unlike President Bush, Obama did not permit release of his transcripts at either school.



At Obama’s 25th Columbia reunion, which coincided with my 50th, I sought out some of his classmates to find out what they remembered about him. Out of a dozen or so alums I approached, there was only a single one said he who knew him. He said that the only things he could recall about Obama were that “he lived off campus”, “didn’t join anything”, and that “he did a lot of drugs”. Certainly he was not the only one at Columbia with these characteristics. But while a high percentage of Obama’s fellow political science majors graduated with honors, Obama did not. This might explain Obama’s reluctance to refrain from saying much about his two years on Morningside Heights (after transferring from Occidental College), despite attempts by Columbia to publicize his connection to the University.



At Harvard Law School, which in the eighties was seeking greater diversity in its student body (in my Class of ’61 there was only a single African-American), Obama was chosen to serve on the prestigious Law Review. However, his selection, was not entirely based on superior grades – as it was in my day – but also depended to a great extent on a written submission. His election later as President of the Review by his peers came during a year when there was an unusually large number of candidates for this prestigious position. Obama’s modus operandi in approaching the Law Review voters was to meet individually with many of them. Just about everyone coming out of that meeting felt somehow that Obama fully agreed with them, no matter what their own personal points of view happened to be. I must admit, this was pretty good for a budding politician! As President of the Review, Obama never authored a single article. His only contribution was producing, what was described to me as a single, insignificant “note”.



This is all not to say that every American President should be judged on their I.Q. But there is the widespread assumption of Obama’s brilliance, which goes well with his rhetorical skills (enhanced by frequent use of a teleprompter). Obama’s relatively brief experience as a “community organizer”, Illinois State Senator, and a couple of years in the Senate before deciding on making a presidential run, are all bereft of any notable accomplishments. In fact, it could, uncharitably, be said that Obama’s only significant accomplishments before becoming President were his writing two books – about himself – and, of course, winning a presidential election.



I am fond of an old Washington maxim that “it’s not only what you know, or who you know, but where you have been.” It is fair to say that as far as foreign and national security issues go, Obama just hasn’t been there enough. Being brought up as a child in Indonesia isn’t exactly a recipe for dealing with the threat of Iranian nukes, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Islamist terrorism and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. So we shouldn’t be too surprised that Obama has been flunking the fundamentals when it comes to his Middle East policies.



These are some of the mistaken assumptions that Obama and his foreign policy team have been relying upon:

• The key to solving U.S. problems in the Middle East is a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based upon greater pressure on Israel for more concessions. This happens to be the same tack most recently enunciated by Osama bin Laden himself. A corollary of this assumption is that George Mitchell’s experience with getting a Northern Ireland deal is also applicable to Israel and the Palestinians. I note, however, that the IRA’s ultimate goal was not the destruction of the U.K.!

• The way to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons is by diplomatic engagement and failing that, the (hollow) threats of sanctions. This means conveniently forgetting about all the missed deadlines, and essentially conceding nuclear weapons in Iranian hands in the very near future. At the same time, by giving only belated verbal support to opponents of the Iranian regime, it diminishes the chance for timely regime change. All this has been happening while the Iranian leadership has been meeting his outstretched hand by essentially telling the President to take a hike.

• The path to increased U.S. influence abroad, including the Middle East, lies in apologizing for past American “sins”. Instead of being respected and feared by despots and terrorists, Obama would prefer we be admired, and then somehow be emulated by these regimes. Fat chance!

• Repetition of the mantra of Islam as a religion of peace, which is being “hijacked” by only a few extremists. Terrorists and enemy combatants should be dealt with by our criminal justice system with all of its constitutional protections. This is demonstrated by trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (the mastermind of 9/11) in a federal criminal court, by reading the Al-Qaeda underwear bomber his Miranda rights, and by the failure of the Defense Department’s report on the Ft. Hood shootings to make any connection whatsoever between Hasan’s openly-stated jihadist beliefs and his murderous actions.

Unless there are significant adjustments made by the administration to acknowledge the realities of the Middle East, this year could turn out to be worse than the last for America’s vital interests in this region. Faced with growing domestic problems and voters’ unease, there is always the danger of a president seeking a quick victory on a highly visible foreign policy issue. Obama himself has recently admitted that his high expectations about achieving a comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Arab conflict were unrealistic. It is hoped that he will abandon an increasingly quixotic pursuit, and choose pragmatism over his own more ideological beliefs. Now this is the kind of change to believe in – and what we will really need to move ahead in 2010 and beyond.