Obama’s first day saw the move for closure of Guantanamo Bay, the suspension of military commissions, the ban on torture, and the action of ‘severely restricting his own power and the power of former Presidents to withhold documents on the basis of secrecy”.
This is not just an American agenda. It restores America’s role on the international stage, and reaffirms a commitment to the rule of law and to global human rights. In doing so, it enhances America’s stature and America’s influence throughout the world.
Obama went on:
‘Our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead… our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.’
He assembled his Joint Chiefs of Staff and Military Commanders and charged them with a new mission: to end an unjust war and to focus on a just war.
Peter Beinart took a slightly different view, the day after the Inaugural Address:
‘If he’s very lucky and very good, Obama may be able to get US foreign policy out of the red by late in his first term. … If he has the chance, my guess is he’ll revive a vision that has intrigued progressive Presidents since Wilson: collective security, the idea that ultimately America’s security and prosperity are bound up with the security and prosperity of people across the globe.’
Beinart has an incorrect view on how one builds “foreign policy capital”. Foreign policy solvency depends on reclaiming the world’s respect.
The Obama administration has gone some way towards reviving the vision of collective security.
‘Guided by those principles once more … we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort, even greater cooperation and understanding between nations’ he said.
‘To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect’. He stood behind these words this week by appearing on Al Arabiya News Channel, where he declared: “the bottom line in all these talks and all these conversations [about Israel and Palestine] is, is a child in the Palestinian Territories going to be better off? Do they have a future for themselves? And is the child in Israel going to feel confident about his or her safety and security?” As Ezra Klein opines, “Al-Qaeda is not feeling the hope and change”.
None of this speaks of American decline. This is not an America that others do not look to.
The corrosion of American power has more than anything been a consequence of America’s failure to live up to the idea of America. The positive reaction that Obama’s Inauguration received all around the world decisively reserves that tide.
China’s state media, CCTV, which cut short his words, felt the impact of America’s new power:
‘To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history, but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist’.
While the US economy may be now larger than that of other countries by a smaller multiple, and that may limit America’s material reach, America’s power to shape and influence world affairs rests more surely on its ideals of liberty, of hope and virtue.
That is the base from which Obama is remarkably and surely reclaiming America’s role in world affairs.
‘To those nations, like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference… For the world has changed, and we must change with it’. And so we must.