Obama is turning charisma into policy

Obama is proving he will turn charisma into policy. Recent events cast doubt on the opinion of many Americans who believe Obama stands for "let us all be friends" and appeasement. They say he is too soft to confront enemies in a dangerous world.

This charge won't go away, but Obama is skillfully displaying his prowess. He laid out what needs to be done and dispelled many misconceptions. Appeasement is one of the most damning charges hurled in American politics. Its sting comes from the pre-history of World War II. After Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, France and Great Britain negotiated rather than demand Germany retreat or face war. Winston Churchill despised this policy and its advocates: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last." In May, President Bush denounced "appeasement" on a visit to Israel. Anyone running for national office in the United States must face the issue of softness.

Senator Obama turned the tables on these McCain-Bush falsehoods with a brilliant speech in Washington D.C. He refused to separate Iraq from the other problems facing the United States. His view of the Muslim world started in Iraq and extended to Pakistan; a successful foreign policy with Muslim nations must isolate extremists, reduce the price of oil while combating global warming, make the threat of Iranian nukes disappear, and end the terrorist haven in Afghanistan. It is ambitious but, unlike President Bush, the Senator's policy reflects international opinion and has good prospects for enlisting international cooperation.

Obama knows violence is down in Iraq, but he ridiculed the McCain-Bush position. He asked why "the gains of the surge mean that I should change my commitment to end the war." The decrease in violence is only one bright spot but more serious problems remain. The surge increased "the strain on our military," while "the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated. June was our highest casualty month of the Afghanistan war. The Taliban has been on the offensive. Al Qaeda has a growing sanctuary in Pakistan." Iran continued to enrich uranium. The reduction in violence was an isolated improvement and didn't represent real progress, Obama warned. "George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq -- they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down."

We can't leave when violence is up, can't leave when it is down. This is damning and concisely stated; punchy remarks that make tough TV ads. Obama boxed McCain and the administration into a corner. They were on the wrong side and knew it. Obama's speech was delivered on Tuesday, July 15th and by Saturday the President shifted his position and supported a "time horizon" for reducing troops. Like Obama's schedule, it ended in 2010 before the mid-term Congressional election.

But Obama wasn't finished. He needed to counter the charge that he was practicing what Republican racists call kumbaya liberalism. Actually I'm being too kind to these pundits. Michelle Malkin called it "blind, deaf, and dumb Kumbaya liberalism."

Refuting these charges was a theme in Obama's Berlin speech last month. He reminded us that history has good moments where appeasement doesn't apply. Great changes don't require war. Cooperation brings transformation without dropping bombs. He provided dramatic examples of peaceful policies that expanded freedom and prevented war. And he pinpointed historic moments that will neutralize the appeasement charges that have handcuffed U.S. politicians. He began his history with the start of the cold war.

The Berlin Blockade is known to every person over 60, but it may be new to other readers. After a rupture developed between Stalin in the Soviet Union and his former allies, the U.S., Britain and France, the dictator stopped the delivery of food and goods by land. These goods were reaching Berlin by passing through the Russian occupied zones on rail and truck. Deliveries stopped and starvation loomed. It was a dark period and a cruel action by Stalin. The United States didn't fight. It organized an airlift that broke all records for delivering goods by plane. As Obama put it, "Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle."
 
Smashing the walls of historic hatred is one theme in Obama's history. He suggests, without promising, that the historic hatreds between Christians and Muslims, Muslims and Jews and others can be overcome.

The next major example he offered was the end of the cold war. Obama pointed once again to Berlin, where the Russians erected a brick wall through the city separating the Communist East from the free West. The wall stopped East Germans from emigrating to the West. In November 1989, while the reformer Mikhail Gorbachev led the Soviet Union, free movement developed between East and West German. The Berlin Wall came down, and the world entered a dramatic period of peaceful transformation.

Four months after the Wall came down, Nelson Mandela was released from prison, and three years later apartheid ended.

During this time, other nations dominated by the Soviet Union became free and joined the European Union.

Apartheid and the Iron Curtain are walls of hate that have fallen in the last 20 years, and Obama reminded us, "if we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope."

Obama pushed Bush into negotiations at the same time, the "Yes we can" candidate reminded us that there are times when history move fast in the direction of hope. Obama has restored his place as the candidate of idealism. He will now apply that to the economy. The rest of the summer will be exciting.