Obama’s Iraq speech today makes many of the right points, but his current Iraq position remains quite unsatisfactory and his broader foreign policy views border on terrifying.  I think the compromise “residual forces” position that he and the other major Democrats have taken is a mistake, both substantively and politically.  It seems to me to contain the worst of both worlds by eliminating the ability of American forces to do much of anything inside Iraq while also failing to remove the vast majority of our soldiers out of the country.   

Part of the argument of my column in the latest TAC available online is that Obama has been using his long-standing opposition to the war as a kind of screen to block antiwar voters from seeing his hyper-ambitious, unrealistic foreign policy ideas about everything else besides Iraq.  The expansiveness of Obama’s idea of what is in the national security interest of the United States is no less dangerous and no less irresponsible than Mr. Bush’s belief that the freedom of America depends on the freedom of the rest of the world. 

His position on Iran is really no less belligerent and no less misguided than that of Giuliani in its basic assumptions about the Iranian government.  For instance, he said about Iran:

And it’s time to deliver a direct message to Tehran. America is a part of a community of nations. America wants peace in the region. You can give up your nuclear ambitions and support for terror and rejoin the community of nations.  Or you will face further isolation, including much tighter sanctions.

As George has pointed out in connection with Giuliani’s FA essay, Iran already is a member of the “community of nations.”  They never left.  George argued:

But bellicose statements do not alone remove a nation from the “international system;” rather, uncooperative nations must be dealt with through the tools of that system, be they diplomatic, political, economic, or yes, military in cases where America’s sovereignty is directly threatened.

Nearly every other nation, including staunch American allies, retains diplomatic relations with Iran. And America too should consider re-evaluating the diplomatic freeze that has lasted nearly 3 decades. In addition to a mere consular presence that could facilitate people-to-people cultural exchanges, a full-blown embassy would enable espionage and the gathering of more reliable information than we tend to obtain from unsavory exiles, as Ted Galen Carpenter has argued.

(Incidentally, this echoes William Lind‘s calls for rapprochement with Iran.) 

Later in his speech, Obama quotes Brzezinski, who introduced him at the rally and whose role in the campaign has caused the Senator some grief in pro-Israel circles.  As the Politico story relates, Obama’s position on Israel and Iran is solidly pro-Israel/anti-Iran and ever so conventional.  More worrying still, Obama’s vision for American meddling, er, leadership has not been dimmed in the least by the chastening experience of Iraq:

When we end this war in Iraq, we can once again lead the world against the common challenges of the 21st century. Against the spread of nuclear weapons and climate change. Against genocide in Darfur. Against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair. When we end this war, we can reclaim the cause of freedom and democracy. We can be that beacon of hope, that light to all the world. 

 Unconventional?  Hardly.