Despite Shortcomings, Obama's Foreign Policy Beats Bush's, Eland Argues
Although he criticizes President Obama for escalating the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland argues that Americans are better off with Obama's impure brand of foreign-policy realism than with his predecessor's neoconservative interventionism.
In his latest op-ed, Eland describes the different approaches to foreign policy pursued by U.S. policymakers. The country's founders, he argues, were "realist minimalists with a twist." They believed, for example, that intervention abroad undermined liberty at home. However, their noninterventionist realism fell out of favor in the late 1800s. In the early twentieth century, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson exemplified a crusader mentality that favored foreign-policy interventionism. "Realism" returned in various guises, but even when it was not pure, it tended to be better for Americans than a policy of liberal interventionism (à la Woodrow Wilson) or neoconservative crusading overseas (à la George W. Bush).
"Obama's pragmatism in foreign policy is more reassuring than the messianic meddling overseas of George W. Bush," writes Eland. "But if Obama is to avoid a common pitfall of realism--a dearth of values--he needs to value liberty at home above all and promulgate a restrained foreign policy that will preserve it."
"Is Barack Obama's Realism Better than George W. Bush's Idealism?" by Ivan Eland (6/29/09)
Video: Ivan Eland on Obama's first 100 days
Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, by Ivan Eland
Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq, by Ivan Eland
The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, by Ivan Eland
QUOTE(Snuffysmith @ Jul 1 2009, 03:21 AM) 
Despite Shortcomings, Obama's Foreign Policy Beats Bush's, Eland Argues
Although he criticizes President Obama for escalating the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland argues that Americans are better off with Obama's impure brand of foreign-policy realism than with his predecessor's neoconservative interventionism.
In his latest op-ed, Eland describes the different approaches to foreign policy pursued by U.S. policymakers. The country's founders, he argues, were "realist minimalists with a twist." They believed, for example, that intervention abroad undermined liberty at home. However, their noninterventionist realism fell out of favor in the late 1800s. In the early twentieth century, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson exemplified a crusader mentality that favored foreign-policy interventionism. "Realism" returned in various guises, but even when it was not pure, it tended to be better for Americans than a policy of liberal interventionism (à la Woodrow Wilson) or neoconservative crusading overseas (à la George W. Bush).
"Obama's pragmatism in foreign policy is more reassuring than the messianic meddling overseas of George W. Bush," writes Eland. "But if Obama is to avoid a common pitfall of realism--a dearth of values--he needs to value liberty at home above all and promulgate a restrained foreign policy that will preserve it."
"Is Barack Obama's Realism Better than George W. Bush's Idealism?" by Ivan Eland (6/29/09)
Video: Ivan Eland on Obama's first 100 days
Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, by Ivan Eland
Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq, by Ivan Eland
The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, by Ivan Eland
Although he criticizes President Obama for escalating the U.S. war in Afghanistan, Independent Institute Senior Fellow Ivan Eland argues that Americans are better off with Obama's impure brand of foreign-policy realism than with his predecessor's neoconservative interventionism.
In his latest op-ed, Eland describes the different approaches to foreign policy pursued by U.S. policymakers. The country's founders, he argues, were "realist minimalists with a twist." They believed, for example, that intervention abroad undermined liberty at home. However, their noninterventionist realism fell out of favor in the late 1800s. In the early twentieth century, Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson exemplified a crusader mentality that favored foreign-policy interventionism. "Realism" returned in various guises, but even when it was not pure, it tended to be better for Americans than a policy of liberal interventionism (à la Woodrow Wilson) or neoconservative crusading overseas (à la George W. Bush).
"Obama's pragmatism in foreign policy is more reassuring than the messianic meddling overseas of George W. Bush," writes Eland. "But if Obama is to avoid a common pitfall of realism--a dearth of values--he needs to value liberty at home above all and promulgate a restrained foreign policy that will preserve it."
"Is Barack Obama's Realism Better than George W. Bush's Idealism?" by Ivan Eland (6/29/09)
Video: Ivan Eland on Obama's first 100 days
Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty, by Ivan Eland
Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq, by Ivan Eland
The Empire Has No Clothes: U.S. Foreign Policy Exposed, by Ivan Eland
Eland has it right...
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