Greg Sheridan: Obama Continues Bush's Foreign Policy
[Greg Sheridan is the Australian's Foreign editor.]
I suffer a certain ambiguity in my attitude to Obama. He is the President of the US and as such an enormous force for good in the world. He represents the continuity of overwhelmingly beneficial American policy. So at one level I am all for him.
On the other hand, it is impossible not to be annoyed by the double standards that the Bush-hating media applies to him. Can you imagine the noise and fuss that would be made if George W. Bush had tried to appoint to his cabinet a gaggle of charmed plutocrats who apparently felt the payment of tax was entirely optional?
But the fact Obama has a double standard working in his favour is a great benefit for those who appreciate the importance of US leadership in the world. So I should rejoice in the double standard and hope it continues for the eight years Obama is likely to be President.
After all, on all the big foreign policy questions, Obama has continued Bush's policies. The predator drones still fly over Pakistan, destroying any al-Qa'ida operative dumb enough to talk on the phone. The terrorists are still in Guantanamo as Obama's administration develops the Bush administration's decision to shut Guantanamo, as a necessity of global PR, while trying to stop the terrorists from going back to killing civilians. Like Bush, Obama is pursuing an attempt to engage the Iranian regime and even using the same official Bush did. He is withdrawing from Iraq very slowly, on a timetable approved by Republican senator John McCain. He acknowledges the success of the US troop surge in Iraq and wants to emulate it in Afghanistan. He stands four square behind Israel's security. And so on.
Yet while much of the world hated Bush with an irrational passion, allegedly for these policies, it loves Obama with at least a seemingly similar passion, notwithstanding these very same policies. This is a bit of a mystery, but so far at least it's a good mystery...
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I suffer a certain ambiguity in my attitude to Obama. He is the President of the US and as such an enormous force for good in the world. He represents the continuity of overwhelmingly beneficial American policy. So at one level I am all for him.
On the other hand, it is impossible not to be annoyed by the double standards that the Bush-hating media applies to him. Can you imagine the noise and fuss that would be made if George W. Bush had tried to appoint to his cabinet a gaggle of charmed plutocrats who apparently felt the payment of tax was entirely optional?
But the fact Obama has a double standard working in his favour is a great benefit for those who appreciate the importance of US leadership in the world. So I should rejoice in the double standard and hope it continues for the eight years Obama is likely to be President.
After all, on all the big foreign policy questions, Obama has continued Bush's policies. The predator drones still fly over Pakistan, destroying any al-Qa'ida operative dumb enough to talk on the phone. The terrorists are still in Guantanamo as Obama's administration develops the Bush administration's decision to shut Guantanamo, as a necessity of global PR, while trying to stop the terrorists from going back to killing civilians. Like Bush, Obama is pursuing an attempt to engage the Iranian regime and even using the same official Bush did. He is withdrawing from Iraq very slowly, on a timetable approved by Republican senator John McCain. He acknowledges the success of the US troop surge in Iraq and wants to emulate it in Afghanistan. He stands four square behind Israel's security. And so on.
Yet while much of the world hated Bush with an irrational passion, allegedly for these policies, it loves Obama with at least a seemingly similar passion, notwithstanding these very same policies. This is a bit of a mystery, but so far at least it's a good mystery...