Words.
"At his United Nations debut, Barack Obama urged global cooperation to combat nuclear proliferation, climate change and other problems that go beyond the borders of any one country. The speech was well received around the world, except in one place -- America's right-wing netherworld, which quickly began whipping people into a frenzy. For Michelle Malkin, the speech was evidence that Obama was "the great appeaser," though she went on to say, "From the sound of it, you'd think you were listening to Thomas Jefferson." (That's bad?) For Rush Limbaugh, Obama's speech was "basically a coup against America." At the National Review's Web site, a debate -- an entirely serious debate among serious people -- broke out as to whether the speech proved that Obama actually wanted the world's tyrants to win, in the tradition of past intellectuals who admired Mussolini and Hitler. This is the discourse of American conservatism today: Obama is bad because he loves "death panels" and Hitler.
...the United Nations is the only organization in the world to which all countries belong. As such it does have considerable legitimacy. And that means power. As David Bosco points out in Foreign Policy magazine, over the past two decades the Security Council has authorized "more than a dozen peacekeeping missions, imposed sanctions or arms embargoes on 10 states, and created several war crimes tribunals to prosecute those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity, including sitting heads of state." It's worth putting in the effort to shape its decisions.
...Let's go back one year. Many countries had come to believe that America showed little interest in the world. This hostility had become an easy excuse to reject even modest concessions to U.S. requests. If this sounds partisan, recall that after he was elected president of France in 2007, the pro-American conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was asked by Condoleezza Rice what she could do to help him. "Improve your image in the world," he said.
...Obama's outreach to the world is an experiment, and not merely to see if the world will respond. He wants to demonstrate at home that engagement does not make America weak. For decades, it's been thought deadly for an American politician to be seen as seeking international cooperation. Denouncing, demeaning and insulting other countries was a cheap and easy way to seem strong. In the battle of images, tough and stupid always seemed to win.
Obama is gambling that America is mature enough to understand that machismo is not foreign policy and that grandstanding on the global stage won't succeed. In a new world, with other countries more powerful and confident, America's success -- its security, its prosperity -- depends on working with others. It's a big, bold gambit. I hope it works."
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