Egypt and the Freedom Agenda

As I watch the events in Egypt, I--like many others--have been thinking about George Bush and his Freedom Agenda for the Middle East.  I was always struck by the ambition and scope of Bush's thinking on the subject of freedom in the Middle East, and I secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) cheered him on in his rhetoric.  But all the time, an inner pragmatist kept perking up inside my brain saying "yes, they may want freedom, but an awful lot of them want freedom to pick fundamentalism".  In the end, this horrifying thought kept me from being more than a half-hearted supporter of the Freedom Agenda.

And now, we see Mubarak falling, as Bush and the Freedom Agenda crowd knew he would.  What will replace him?  We see a moderate, secular veneer in the protesting crowds--but is it what will fill the power vacuum, or will it be the Muslim Brotherhood, the only opposition to Mubarak with any organization to speak of, pieced together under the boot of a police state.

Only time will tell, but I don't like where this could go.  Elliott Abrahms writes on the subject this morning, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically for my taste.

US In The World--A Quick Question

Quickly now---considering US friends and allies from the Bush Administration--with which do we now have a BETTER government to government relationship?

I'm waiting......

Richard Haas Has Second Thoughts On Iran

Richard Hass, President of the Council on Foreign Relations and the former Director of Policy Planning in the first GWB White House, has come out against continuing to treat with the Mullahs in Iran. Citing his previous agreement with President Obama's stance, Haas has changed his mind and is big enough to admit it. This will cause some rumblings in Georgetown and Upper East Side salons....and it is yet another sign of the fraying of the Obama aura.

Dr. Preble on Obama and Afghanistan

Our favorite libertarian foreign policy expert, Dr. Chris Preble of The Cato Institute, has an interesting podcast up on the Cato website. Dr. Preble's not a fan of Obama's plan--and he makes a lot of sense on a lot of points.

One point I with which I will take issue: Preble says "the American people HATE open-ended commitments" (speaking in support of the President's 18 month limit). Perhaps--but they hate losing more.

Iran Is In Israel's Crosshairs

With each and every step the Iranians take away from a deal on uranium enrichment, we get one step closer to Israel taking aggressive action.

CWTV--Latest Video--The Obama Dichotomy

Ideology and idealism in on the domestic side, coldly rational, interest based approach on the foreign policy side. Seems to me he's got it bass ackwards.

Catch the latest video here.

UPDATE: I realize I should have said "domestic" policy at the :20 mark, not "foreign".

Is America's Image Overseas Improving?

David Ignatius attempts this morning to give a six-month report card on the Obama foreign policy. Along the way, he breezily makes the point about America's image overseas having been raised, resuscitated, increased or whatever. And for evidence he cites.....two former American national security advisers.

How about consulting someone from the Polish government, whose bold steps in cooperating on central European missile-defense policy were turned into a political nightmare by the retrenchment of the Obama Administration. Or how about someone from the British Foreign Office--you remember them, right--our special friends--to see how "special" they feel nowadays. Or perhaps one could interview someone from the Israeli government, and ask whether Obama's ridiculous relativism in his Cairo speech (yes there was a Holocaust that killed six million Jews, but there are also Palestinian refugee camps....) makes our most important Middle East ally feel any better about their precarious position. Maybe Ignatius could talk to someone in either France or Germany's Ministry of Finance and ask them how they feel about the "stimulative" nature of Mr. Obama's spending proposals.

For further evidence of America's enhanced position in the world, Ignatius turns to that wizened arbiter of international relations....Rahm Emanuel, who happens to also be President Obama's Chief of Staff. Here's Emanuel on the state of play: "We have taken off the table reflexive anti-Americanism as a reason not to deal with us," says Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. "We're not shimmying in the end zone. But we are a long way from where we began."

The naivete of these folks is stunning.