James Joyner from Outside the Beltway argues in a column at The National Interest that, when it comes to foreign policy, there isn’t that much difference between Barack Obama and his predecessor:
President Obama took the oath of office six months ago. He did so after a long campaign in which he continuously promised “change” and to “restore America’s standing in the world.” Thus far, however, optics are all that keeps his administration’s foreign policy from being a continuation of George W. Bush’s.
In fairness, six months is not much time. Then again, it represents one eighth of the term. Further, as Obama himself has acknowledged vis-à-vis health care reform and other issues on the domestic agenda, we’re not far from the point where Congress’ attention turns to the 2010 election cycle and major change gets much harder. Soon thereafter, the race for 2012 gets underway and Washington becomes incredibly risk averse.
Further, there are strong signals that a real break will come on some secondary issues. Obama is much less enthusiastic about missile defense, more likely to show tough love to Israel and less apt to fervently pursue our half-century-old idiocy in Cuba. But on all the major issues, the movement has been cosmetic.
Joyner goes on to note how on issues ranging from Iraq to Pakistan to North Korea, the Obama Administration is following a path that was laid out by the Administration before it.
But foreign policy isn’t the only area where there are similarities between the policies of the 43rd and 44th Presidents. We’ve seen it in a continuation of the Bush Administration’s policies on indefinite detention of terror suspects, in the Obama Administration’s adoption of many of the Bush Administration’s theories on the so-called “unitary Executive” in defining Presidential powers, in the fiscal policies of the two Administrations, and in defense of warrantless wiretapping.
Change we can believe in indeed.
