Someone asked Obama during the CNN/YouTube debate. “Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?”

Obama responded, “I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them -- which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration -- is ridiculous.”  He noted that it was wisest to talk to a dangerous enemy and recalled how Presidents Ronald Reagan and John F Kennedy spoke with Soviet Union leaders although Reagan called them an evil empire.

Clinton responded that she would not promise to meet those leaders her first year. She continued, “I will promise a very vigorous diplomatic effort because I think it is not that you promise a meeting at that high a level before you know what the intentions are. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes.”

Most political analyst assumed that Clinton won this exchange, because they only evaluated her statement in the limited context of a political campaign. However, I doubt if Americans want to hear their president admitting the fear that foreign leaders will outmaneuver and take advantage of her if she met with them outside a controlled, scripted setting.

By making this excuse, Clinton set herself up as a propaganda target if voters elect her president. If she refuses to meet with them, foreign leaders will claim that it is her admitted fear of inadequacy and her delusion of persecution that holds her back.

She also said, “I don't want to make a situation even worse. And I will use a lot of high-level presidential envoys to test the waters, to feel the way.” Bold national leaders create the international currents that timid leaders test to decide their direction. The President of the United States should be among the leaders creating those currents and not one of the timid followers hanging back testing the water.

So, Senator Clinton displays more characteristics of the timid follower rather than the bold leader.   Was Clinton’s statement only a tactical error during a political campaign or a revelation about troubling traits in her character and her thinking?

Senator Clinton is a skilled politician who carefully chooses her words and statements. That she framed her comments about this important foreign policy issue in meek, defensive terms tells voters something about her character and leadership philosophy. Bold confident leaders don’t include terms like fear, hanging back and testing for safety in their remarks.

Senator Clinton’s remarks reminded me of the point made by gunslinger Frank, played by Henry Fonda, in the 1968 movie, Once Upon a Time in the West. “How can you trust a man who wears both a belt and suspenders? The man can't even trust his own pants.” Can U.S. voters trust Clinton as a leader whose experience makes her better suited as a committee member than leader.  She flubbed the second most important foreign policy decision during her term as senator when having tested the waters she supported President Bush invading Iraq.

Having experience only in outdated methods is not an asset. Old methods are not better if the conditions changed. The use of envoys was necessary centuries ago when travel and communications were slow. Now heads of state can travel anywhere in the world with hours. They have instant communications and they can meet in virtual conferences without leaving their offices.

Democrat presidential candidate Senator Edwards and Republican Rudolph Giuliani agreed with Clinton about not meeting with hostile foreign leaders without much prior work by low-level diplomats. However, when challenged, none of them could say why doing it their way, the old way, was better. They all sputtered the same response of the need for preconditions and for creating conditions that insured a successful outcome.

However, a precondition is another name for the concessions the United States demands from other national leaders to prove they are worthy to meet the U.S. president. This arrogance blocks agreements.

Diplomacy traditionalists like Clinton believe meetings between heads of state must end in a formal agreement to be successful. Others like Obama understand that a meeting is successful if the heads of state leave with mutual respect and understanding each other and each other’s national goals better.

 

Write to Kenneth Brooks at P.O. Box 882, Vallejo, CA 94590. E-mail to: opinion@ethicalego.com.