Obama Goes 3 for 3

Three different pieces of seemingly unconnected news struck me as promising on the foreign policy front today.

First, this editorial by Halil M. Karaveli in the Jerusalem Post notes an interesting and surprising change in Obama's approach to radical Islam. As I know from spending nearly a month in Turkey during the summer of 2004, the secular-religious divide in that country is particularly fierce. Karaveli outlines how Bush's approach to contending with radical Islam was to hold up the 'relative' moderate Turkish Islamist ruling party as an example for the Muslim world. This had the effect of placing Turkey's avid secularists into a bind.

On his recent trip to Ankara, where Obama addressed Turkey's parliament, Obama reached out to secularists by speaking about "secular democracy" as "the greatest monument to Atatürk's life." According to the author:

Obama's tributes to the secularist revolutionary were not bows dictated by diplomatic etiquette to the founding father of a host country, but politically charged interventions in the ongoing debate about secularism and Islam. Indeed, his words were near-affronts to the belief held by Islamic conservatives and liberals - the alliance which dominates Turkish public discourse - that the introduction of secularist reforms was a traumatic event.

So much for Republican hysteria that Obama would be the 'great champion of Islam'.

The other two pieces to catch my eye came from Bloomberg. The first refers to the President's refusal to lift the embargo on Cuba despite internal pressure to do so. It should be noted Obama has loosened many of the regulations barring commerce between the U.S. and the Communist dictatorship to our south. But this doesn't mean he's ready for a full normalization of relations. As the article states:

Any further thaw in relations will depend on what Cuban President Raul Castro does to provide greater economic and civil rights for Cubans, according to the administration.

“Actions speak louder than words,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

Finally, there was this piece outlining the U.S.'s decision to boycott the sham Durban II conference 'against' racism. Despite some 'improvements' in the draft document, the State Dept. felt not nearly enough progress was made to justify U.S. involvement. As the Department's Robert Wood pointed out:

“The DDPA singles out one particular conflict and prejudges key issues that can only be resolved in negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians,” acting U.S. State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood said in a statement. “The United States also has concerns with relatively new additions to the text regarding ‘incitement,’ that run counter to the U.S. commitment to unfettered free speech.”

In all three instances, Obama has shown his dedication to the values of secular democracy, regardless of the region or religion involved and how his actions could be perceived by the U.S.'s critics and bashers abroad. He has shows impressive moral clarity thus far, offering olive branches when possible but holding firm to America's (and clearly his own) core values. Far from being some post-modernist aberration, he has made a serious effort to return American prestige to the global stage without compromising America's vital interests. It leaves me rather hopeful he will deal with both Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a similar fashion, diverging from his predecessor when he smells the chance at progress, but without compromising either American or Israeli vital interests.