Let's Talk

One point I've been trying to make in my book talks is that there's precious little evidence that public opinion is demanding a neo-imperial foreign policy for the United States. Nobody felt during the 2000 presidential campaign that the public was clamoring for a new Orwellian doctrine of "anticipatory self-defense" (to repeat the phrase used in Doug Feith's book) in which the United States was going to launch aggressive wars against countries that hadn't attacked us or our allies and had no plans of doing so. September 11, clearly, had a large impact on public opinion but even then there was little public interest in doing this, which is why the Bush administration overstated both the scale and the immediacy of the alleged Iraqi threat while drastically downplaying the costs.

And you see again that while it took a certain amount of courage for Barack Obama to stand up to the crusted-over notion that the United States should set itself up as too damn important to conduct high-level talks with regional adversaries, there's not some genuine avalanche of public opinion on the other side of this issue. What you have instead is a political and media system that's very vulnerable to hype, fearmongering, hysteria, etc. But calm political leadership that doesn't panic at the first sign of conservative self-confidence about the politics of warmongering has a real chance to win these fights.

Comments

I believe the supposed sticking point is talks "without preconditions." Which every moron immediately interprets as the POTUS paying repeated Sunday afternoon calls to "Ak-ma-DEE-ne-jad" to have tea and eagerly fork over U.S. assets and prestige.

Posted by Bill | June 2, 2008 11:10 AM

Bill is right. This issue is essentially a framing battle. If the question is phrased as you and Gallup phrase it, its a clean winner for Obama. If the question is phrased "do you think the President should meet without preconditions with Ahmadinejad, who has said that Israel needs to be wiped off the map?" it's probably a winner for McCain.

Posted by Leo | June 2, 2008 11:19 AM

What you don't mention is the extent to which Republicans are outliers here. Dems and Independents are virtually identical on this issue. Just another piece of evidence for how hysterical and out of step with the rest of the country the GOP has become.

Posted by beckya57 | June 2, 2008 11:26 AM

McCain's speech to AIPAC seemed weak - He pounded the table a bit, so to speak. But his words were hollow.

But he mocked talking with Iran - His refusal to give reasons shows that he is relying on a sense of general outrage to defeat Reason.

The tide is going out on his approach.

Oh - McCain erred and called the violence in Lebanon the worst since the civil war.

The internal violence in the refugee camps last years was greater.

McCain's errors - no matter how small - should be pointed out.

Posted by Comment | June 2, 2008 11:32 AM

McCain is a nice guy, in many respects. But he is very confused by the details of foreign policy.

He mocked the appeasement of Hezbollah in Qatar. But is McCain aware that the Bush administration already praised the Qatar appeasement (they didn't use that word though)?

It's doubtful that McCain really knows what Hezb is or what the Druse or who is in Amal or the nature of the Sunni and Christian communities.

Recall he was against Reagan going into Leb in '82 , but then he lamented loss of face when Reagan wisely cut and run.

McCain's battle proud - like Troilus in Troilus & Cressida:

"Nay, if we talk of Reason,
Let's shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour
Should have hare hearts, would they but fat their thoughts
With this cramm'd Reason."

Posted by Comment | June 2, 2008 11:54 AM

I disagree that adding the words without preconditions is a loser for Obama. Most people when they meet with someone, there is no preconditions. I don't suspect most people expect that anything is agreed to before meetings. After all that is the point of the meeting, to work out disagreements.

Posted by nathaniel | June 2, 2008 12:10 PM

I would be interested to see how among Republicans that breaks down between business Republicans and cultural conservative Republicans. I'm guessing the latter are the crazy ones with regard to this.

Posted by Reality Man | June 2, 2008 1:11 PM

You're all forgetting one thing: the growing military-industrial-security complex needs a war ever so often and then, when the case for war has been made and they get what they need, I bet somewhere around 50% of the people don't really mind or care and 25% actually relish war.

Posted by novakant | June 2, 2008 1:32 PM

I don't understand the references to "the President" having the meeting with the Iranians or whomever. You don't involve the top guy unless there's been progress at lower levels. You send feelers out, often through intermediaries. If those are successful, you can elevate the level of talks.

Posted by Lisa | June 2, 2008 3:38 PM

This is just symptomatic of the paradox the the Replublican party. Their actual views and policies on most stuff are way out of line with what most people want, so they have to lie about their views and policies to get elected, and lie again to achieve the desired results. You really need a skeptical press to keep this in check. Sadly, we haven't had one of those for a while.

Posted by bobbo | June 2, 2008 5:51 PM