How does one turn President Obama‘s admission that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to deal with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria into a net positive for him? E.J. Dionne stretches so far in the attempt that his arms must be breaking, likening it to Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s comment after his “Quarantine the Aggressor’ speech in 1937 — “we are looking for a program” — to suggest that the two men were birds of a feather, caught in “a world flying out of control.”
Where to begin? Both men were Democrats, and both came from Hyde Park — or ‘came from a Hyde Park’ might describe the truth better — but points of resemblance are otherwise lacking. Obama comes from the anti-war movement, whereas FDR was a chip off the block of his fifth-cousin Theodore. He served as Teddy’s mole in the Navy Department as the latter connived to push a pacifist president into the war.
The Roosevelts reveled in power and saw themselves are world leaders. Obama wants to ‘lead from behind,’ greatly reduce the national footprint, and wind down its military role. The Roosevelts saw their country as the exceptional nation; Obama thinks America is exceptional only in its own fantasies, sort of like Greece.
In most ways, the men are opposites of each other, but the most striking difference is this: between 1935 and the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR was a tough-minded realist. He knew war was coming, and he was driven almost insane by the isolationist mood of his country and Congress. Obama, on the other hand, is a leader in denial about the state of the world and his country. He is being pushed into a pale and conditional species of action by the foreign relations establishment of both major parties, bipartisan figures in both houses of Congress, and an angry and anxious American public, not quite as war-weary as legend has had it, which is miles ahead of its chief.
The fascinating story of the period between September 1, 1939 and Pearl Harbor was the unending struggle of Franklin Roosevelt to turn his country, through Lend-Lease and other subtle devices, into a de facto ally of Britain without breaking any of the laws of neutrality and without alarming a country not ready yet to accept the reality of what it was about to be called on to do.
The fascinating story of 2014 is the struggle of diplomats, soldiers, and members of Congress to break the news to Barack Obama that his view of the world is out of touch with reality and nudge him gently into a new course of action less out of line with the facts.
Without success, reality had begged Obama not to pull out of Iraq without leaving a residual force of about 20,000 to keep order and keep pressure on the untrusted Nouri al-Maliki. Without success, it had urged him to arm the moderate rebels in Syria while they a) were still moderate, and b) had a chance. Just before the predictable result of these two decisions — immoderate Syrians sweeping through a weakened Iraq — he yawned, called the Islamic State “junior varsity,” and played some more golf.
Even now, amid the Islamic State’s gains, the real pressure point for Obama on his strategy seems to come from the polls, which show his ratings on foreign affairs sinking through the low 30s. This seems to have gained his attention, and pushed him a little towards … war.
The country is weary of war, but wearier still of being a cipher. America is ready again to be a great country. Can it convince its commander-in-chief?
Noemie Emery, a Washington Examiner columnist, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard and author of “Great Expectations: The Troubled Lives of Political Families.”
