Can Obama Win as a War President?

[xchrom]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/10/can-obama-win-as-a-war-president/247182/

The Republicans aiming for the White House might be well-advised to pack it in on foreign policy for a while and cede the field to President Obama. While they've got a case to make against his economic stewardship, their national security critiques are increasingly at odds with the facts on the ground.

The narrative from Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich and other candidates is that Obama is a weakling who continually apologizes for America, doesn't believe we're exceptional, cedes leadership to other nations, mistreats Israel, and is overseeing our march toward lesser-power status. The problem with those narratives is that they are, for the most part, false -- and obviously so.

Obama has brought his party close to parity with the Republican Party when it comes to which one voters trust more to keep the nation safe. In a world ever more complicated, dangerous and economically fragile, he can make a strong argument that he deserves re-election based his record as commander in chief. That may not be enough to offset the pain of the recession and voters' desire for change, but Republicans are bolstering his case in at least two ways: One, some are making unforced errors on foreign policy and two, as they court conservative primary voters, the GOP candidates may be misreading the type of foreign policy most Americans want.

The operating assumption among most of them is that the public yearns for the good old bellicose days when George W. Bush divided the world into with us or against us, talked about the axis of evil, invaded two countries, and decided we would stick around indefinitely to rebuild them as modern democracies. Yet Obama's election was a rejection of that approach. The public had turned against the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and remains against them. People have even been wary of Obama's limited deployment of U.S. military and diplomatic muscle in Libya, though it was in concert with NATO and Libyan rebel forces and there were no U.S. troops on the ground there.

[Smarmie Doofus]

1. I don't see why not. It never fails.

Exception: Bush 1.

And.... it was the economy that brought him down.

But Iraq II saved W from a similar fate. ( Economy wasn't as bad.)

[Kolesar]

2. "views toward the U.S. and Obama remained mostly positive across much of the world" ...

... in 2010 and 2011, the Pew Global Attitudes Project reported last month.
-------
I expect the gop-newspapers all over the country will still find a "foreign policy rationalization" to endorse whatever dingleweed the gop nominates next year.

[opihimoimoi]

3. Obama the Carrot Guy.....will Win as the Stick DUDE...and W will wilt in comparison even more

[JoePhilly]

4. He's proving that the GOP has been wrong, wrong, wrong on foreign policy.

[OHdem10]

5. His success can help him show he is a Leader. However, the

Economy and people's pocketbooks will be the
voting issue.

[boxman15]

6. He should run on his successful foreign policy record

The economy will still be the #1 issue, and he'll need to convince moderate and independent voters that he's stabilized the economy, but is being blocked by the GOP from doing more.

But, the main talking point against Democrats for the Republicans ever since Vietnam has been that Democrats are weak with foreign affairs, weak on terror. Now, Obama has proven that wrong. It could be easily argued that he is the most successful president in terms of foreign policy in decades. Osama, Gaddafi, al-Alwaki, the Arab Spring, nuclear deals with Russia, I could go on. He's been very successful. Not only should he run on his record, he should highlight the differences between the Bush and Obama Doctrines.

Something like "In Libya, we ousted a dictator with no American lives lost for only $1 billion, but in Iraq, we ousted a dictator, but with thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars lost, and we stayed for another 9 years all in search of something that was never there" should highlight the differences effectively.

[frazzled]

7. And a war-ending president

He's made good on his pledge to end one war and has a timetable for extricating ourselves from the second--both started by the previous administration.

As for the rest, he's returning to the more Clintonesque (though it took Clinton years to decide to intervene in Kosovo after the Bosnian atrocities) strategy of limited (and mostly international) deployments with no ground troops. In other words, he's moving away from full-scale wars to targeted, achievable operations. And frankly, he's mostly achieved them all: bin Laden, Libya, etc.

The rest of the foreign policy has not been so successful it seems, at least in the short-term. The Israel-Palestine issue is at a total standstill and maybe gotten worse. China, I have no idea. But this seems to be a president with long-term goals rather than short-term strategies, so perhaps what looks like stasis or backsliding is really going to turn out in several years to be game-changing.

[Arkana]

8. He doesn't have to. He can let his successes speak for themselves

as a testament to the utter failure of the Bush Doctrine.

[Safetykitten]

9. He's not going to win as an economic President.

[ClarkUSA]

10. No, one reason Obama will win is he's the Ending War And Bringing Peace President.

Military families will remember who ended/is ending the wars and is bringing them home.

[CakeGrrl]

11. Unrec for the article's negative frame. However, SoS Clinton is now on board

with the President's leadership skills in the foreign policy arena:

“Let me begin by saying that President Obama has passed with flying colors every leadership challenge. I mean, look at what he has done. I mean, just to name a few things …. we were looking for bin Laden for 10 years. It was under President Obama’s leadership that he was finally eliminated.

“Libya … with the kind of smart leadership that the president showed, demonstrating that American leadership was essential, but it was important to try to bring others into a coalition of efforts. And the objective was achieved keeping the promise to withdraw from Iraq, but not leave Iraq – by having a robust security and training mission accompanied by a very large diplomatic presence. I could go on and on. I think this president has demonstrated that …. it’s important to have someone at the helm of our country who understands how to manage what is an incredibly complex world now.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/vp/45005449#45005449

[woo me with science]

12. The war candidate will win this election. So will the corporate candidate.

That is because both options will be war and corporate candidates.

Support OWS.

[FrenchieCat]

13. No. He isn't a "war" President in the real sense.....

instead, he should run as the President who will be most beneficial to our economic well being in a long and short run. He should also run against a do-nothing Republican controlled (see filibusters), and request that he be given a congress that he can work with, instead of the one he currently has who is working against the nation.

[MisterP]

14. a more successful version of Dubya? no thanks

[MisterP]

15. a more successful version of Dubya? no thanks