Obama’s Break with the Establishment ( Foreign Policy ) Vote for Bernie Sanders

[Jefferson23]

Tuesday, 22 March 2016 07:46


By Gareth Porter. This article was first published on Consortium News.

President Obama, with his characteristic diffidence, has announced his “liberation” from the Washington foreign-policy “playbook,” but the national security elite is already striking back, writes Gareth Porter.

The biggest story in Jeffrey Goldberg’s 20,000-word report on “The Obama Doctrine” is President Barack Obama’s open break with the foreign policy establishment.

The critique of orthodox national security policy thinking that Obama outlined in interviews with Goldberg goes farther than anything delivered on the record by a sitting president. It showed that Obama’s view on how to define and advance U.S. “national security” diverges sharply from those of the orthodox views of national security bureaucracy and Washington foreign policy think tanks on U.S. “credibility,” the real interests the United States in the Middle East and how the United States should respond to terrorism.

It was the controversy surrounding his decision in the 2013 Syrian crisis not to authorize airstrikes against government forces that provoked Obama to go public with his position in that broader struggle. The foreign policy elite in Washington has issued a steady drumbeat of opinion pieces portraying Obama’s failure to launch a cruise missile attack against the Syrian air force and its air defense system in 2013 as a major blow to the U.S. role in the world because it forfeited U.S. “credibility.”

http://therealnews.com/t2/component/content/article/92-more-blog-posts-from-gareth-porter/2672-obamas-break-with-the-establishment

[geek tragedy]

1. it's really a shame Sanders didn't put more emphasis on foreign policy--it's foreign policy

where he is indisputably not only more progressive than Clinton, but also more practical and pragmatic.

And where he is much more firmly in line with Barack Obama, since Clinton really is more like George W Bush than Obama when it comes to foreign policy (notice how all the good stuff in terms of diplomacy happened after she left and Kerry replaced her).

Hillary did a great deal to push my NY state primary vote back to Sanders yesterday.

[Jefferson23]

2. Yea, for the short time that is left in the primary to make a difference I hope

they use this to their advantage.

Oh I noticed, like I said, the way she thinks is why I voted for Obama in the
primary race back in the day.

[geek tragedy]

5. yep, it's never been clearer that primary voters got it right in 2008. nt

[Jefferson23]

7. Speaking of HUGE...we got it right, big time. n/t

[BeyondGeography]

3. Totally agree

Plus it's FP/Clinton's IWR vote why so many people got on board with Obama in the first place back in 2007.

[geek tragedy]

6. that's her weakness--domestic policy she's ok, it's foreign policy where she's bad nt

[cosmicone]

4. Bernie should have gotten out of Vermont

and looked at many other things besides wall street.

Having a unicorn foreign policy or no policy whatsoever is not much different from Trump saying, "we'll get the best people and we'll have the most fantastic foreign policy, okayyyyyyy?" to people who are looking for specifics.