Last chance for the US to shape the new global order

[flashl]

By Philip Stephens

Some time ago, long before he had stolen the lead from Hillary Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama sought the counsel of one of Washington’s wisest thinkers on foreign policy.

Mr Obama’s question was not about the campaign. He wanted to know instead what were the three or four foreign policy issues on which he should concentrate during his first year in the White House. Beyond that, how should he organise the inter-agency machinery to ensure that these priorities were transmitted right through his administration?

Some would detect a hint of hubris here. Even if Mr Obama, as seems most likely, wins the Democratic nomination, there is still a general election to be fought against John McCain in November. A kinder interpretation would be that he is a careful politician who thinks ahead.

Either way, the question cut to the core of the foreign policy dilemma facing the next occupant of the White House. It is impossible to overestimate the weight of expectation in the rest of the world about the direction of US foreign policy after George W. Bush’s departure. But the big risk faced by the new president will be of being overwhelmed by the avalanche of problems demanding instant decision.

...

Whether it is Mr Obama or Mr McCain, or at a pinch Mrs Clinton, the argument runs, the president will not escape Mr Bush’s legacy. The administration will be overwhelmed from day one. Here, I think, lies the insight in Mr Obama’s question. The first challenge will be to separate the important and the urgent. Part of the answer can be found, as Mr Obama suggested, in picking a handful of issues that will enjoy the early attention of the administration.

That will not be enough. More significant than these choices will be the prism through which the president sees them. The key decision will not be so much what stance the US takes on this or that issue, but rather what is the organising principle that shapes America’s response to all of them.

FT

[Demeter]

1. Those Chances Died When Supremes Selected W

We have no moral authority, no army, no money, no budget...nothing with which to create order.

All we have are crooks and fraud, and we've outsourced them to every corner of the earth. And they spread death, debt, disease and disorder. We have created chaos. And if we let the crooks go scot free, we will deserve everything that's coming to us.

[bemildred]

2. A long, scorched-earth battle with entrenched and unaccountable power

is what Mr. Obama has to look forward to, and he'd better know who his friends are and who they are not. Jimmy Carter tried to do this by being nice 30 years ago and was trashed for his pains. Today we are paying the price of that failure. It is going to take one king-hell rabble rouser to do the job.