By Eric Anschutz, December 23, 2009
Many of us who voted for Barack Obama a year ago were motivated in part by the speech he gave in 2002 warning against going to war with Iraq. Here it is again: “I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaida. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.â€
I ask you now to contrast the wisdom in that 2002 speech to the unwise and unworthy speech our President gave in Oslo just days ago at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Again, I quote: “ (As President) I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill. Some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the cost of armed conflict…â€
Some have said that the difference between the two speeches reflects Obama’s transition from candidate to President. Obama, in his Oslo speech, put it this way: “(I am) mindful of what Martin Luther King said in this same ceremony years ago: ‘Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: It merely creates new and more complicated ones.’ But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by (King’s and Gandhi’s and Mandela’s) examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaida’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.â€
Most would agree that the war against Nazism was a just war; Hitler needed to be stopped by military force. But, Obama, then went on to say: “The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.†This latter statement has won plaudits from Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and Newt Gingrich – though the right wing crowd is building on Obama’s statement by calling again for Obama to undertake vigorous military confrontation with North Korea and Iran.
It was of course necessary for President Obama, in accepting the Peace Prize, to speak to the war in Afghanistan, and to his responsibilities as Commander in Chief of our armed forces, and to the confrontation with al-Qaida and the Taliban. The problem is, however, that he chose to speak as a political leader, one who deemed it necessary not only to justify our ongoing war, but to go on with the questionable assertion that the global reach of our military had underwritten world security for six decades. All-time hawk President Bush 43 could have given that same speech.
Obama had the opportunity, in Oslo, at a moment when he had the rapt attention of a hopeful world, to speak as a world leader, one worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. Instead, he spoke as a very ordinary politician, one not worthy of the Nobel Award, not even worthy of the votes and the hopes invested in him by those to whom he promised change.
Here in brief is what he might have said. Instead of claiming that America’s military strength has helped underwrite global security for six decades, he should have spoken to the two truly meaningful contributions America has made to global security: the first was the Marshall Plan, and the second was détente with and containment of the Soviet Union. The Vietnam War and the Iraq War were not contributions to global security; they were insults to it; those two wars contributed nothing but distress to a war-weary world, the killing of 60,000 young Americans, maiming of so many more, and depletion of both our treasure and our moral stature.
By contrast, the Marshall Plan saved democracy and brought economic enrichment to Western Europe; détente with the USSR, coupled with patient and steady containment, not bombs, resulted in the demise of the Soviet Union and the ultimate restoration of democracy to Eastern Europe.
A Nobel Prize-worthy Obama would have said that what we see as evil in today’s world is the product of injustice, religious zeal and poverty. He might then have quoted our own Secretary of Defense Robert Gates who has frequently spoken out on the futility of war as a means of bringing peace, noting that the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end what Gates calls the “Long War†against violent extremism. Our best course, he says, is to use the “soft power†of diplomacy, development assistance, and cultural exchange to eliminate the conditions that foster terrorism. Gates has also wisely called for partnering with China and Russia to blunt their rise as potential adversaries. General McChrystal too emphasizes repeatedly the need to win hearts and minds through construction, not destruction. Paradoxically, though Gates and McChrystal support the surge in Afghanistan, they (like Obama) know that in the end violence fosters violence and only soft power can bring cross-cultural understanding and a peaceful outcome.
A Nobel-worthy Obama would have made the case for alternative policies to “confront†Islamic terrorism by announcing gradual withdrawal of our troops, and spelling out the merits of an Afghanistan strategy centered on the twin policies of containment and a Middle East Marshall Plan. He might have announced at the same time withdrawal of our troops from Germany and Korea – which would save another $70 billion yearly. Obama did say that rebuilding America was the “nation building†most important to him; he might have added that an economically and socially successful and peaceful America would do more to win global support than the futile effort to kill or pacify the religious crazies lurking in Afghanistan’s mountain caves or hiding in the eighth century villages that abound in that unhappy country.
Mankind has tried from its beginning to solve political and geographical and cultural differences with war. We have learned that violence begets more violence. The time has come, a Nobel-worthy Obama could have said, to try something different.