How to Judge the Candidates' Foreign Policy Experience

Who has greater foreign policy experience: Obama or McCain? Well, that's easy. Just count their frequent flyer miles, says McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann. Let's see, McCain has visited dozens of countries, many of them in Latin America: "He's been to the Amazon rain forest, he's been to the Galapagos Islands," Scheunemann told the Washington Post. Golly, Randy, that is impressive! Has McCain also rented Motorcycle Diaries?

Obama, by contrast, has never bothered visit Latin America. He probably doesn't even know the capital of Paraguay is what McCain advisers are insinuating. Of course, under that logic, that makes millions of keg-guzzling college kids who visit Cancun each spring experts on U.S.-Mexican relations. Ah, but McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, Scheunemann adds, which, as the Post notes, attests to his "historical connection to the region." Hmm, that means since I was born in Milwaukee, I must be an expert on beer, cheese, and Harleys.

Of course, the concern voters have is electing somebody again like George W. Bush, who'd never really set foot outside the United States, much less his home state. His knowledge of world capitals, world leaders, world anything, was a joke. "Grecians" are Greeks in his mind and "when in Rome, do as the Romanians do" (OK, Bush never said that but in fairness he probably thought it). Yet Bush has now had eight years to trot the globe, hobnob with world leaders, and pick up foreign tongues. Does that make him any more qualified to be McCain's secretary of state? Hell no. No more than going to grade school in Indonesia qualifies Obama to be president or growing up in upstate Wisconsin makes me suitable to run a Cracker Barrel.

Judgment matters, as Obama keeps hectoring us. Yet the idea that judgment can be gleaned from a stopover visit to Afghanistan or Iraq is foolish. Still, we all know the drill: photo-ops with generals in fatigues might win him a few votes, or at least shut up McCain's advisers about his lack of "on the ground" experience.

Obama has been trashed in recent weeks about his reversal, er, revision of his Iraq stance. He may not yank us out of Iraq in one fell swoop, as a President Richardson might have, but on the biggest foreign policy question facing voters, he is right: Is Iraq the central front on the war on terror or is Pakistan/Afghanistan? If you think the former, vote for McCain -- and hundreds of billions of dollars will be poured into Iraq, while thousands of Americans continue to die. If you think the latter, then vote for Obama.

More Americans are dying monthly in Afghanistan than Iraq, after all, but the region remains grossly under-manned and under-resourced, thanks to the mess in Iraq. Osama bin Laden still commands a vast army of followers from northwest Pakistan, but the U.S. has turned a blind eye and instead showered Pakistan's government with $10 billion, no questions asked. Obama -- unlike McCain, Musharraf's BFF -- insists he reserves the right to move into Pakistan militarily, should the need arise.

In short, Obama, unlike McCain, appears to get it: that Iraq was a war of choice, fought against Islamic nationalists, not Islamic terrorists who fly planes into skyscrapers. He recognizes the success "on the ground" there but believes the real battle lies elsewhere. McCain, on the other hand, may have more stamps on his passports, but his command of the "war on terror" bears a disturbing resemblance to his command of computers.

Comments

[jollyelle]

Excellent, excellent piece!!! Funny and oh so true!!!

[Chrisle]

I agree excellent, it would be funny except for the fact he is talking about somebody who thinks he is capable of being the next president, even more sadly some people agree with him.