Tough, Fearless Foreign Policy

I found this Guardian article very interesting for the way it sums up one of the things that first attracted me to the Obama candidacy: Barack is not afraid to stand up for a responsible foreign policy. For too long now, Republicans have been able to get away with the most militaristic, jingoistic, and flat out loopy views on foreign policy because Democrats thought they had a "National Security Problem."

But the trouble is that allowing the only two possible visions for America's place in the world to be either right-wing lunacy or quiet, slightly embarrassed centrism actually makes the country less secure (not just apparently so). We urgently need a political culture where it is not only "safe" to talk about negotiation, international institutions and soft power as essential tools in our foreign policy toolbox, but also clearly recognised as madness to forego these essential tools.

Democrats will always lose arguments that we are too fearful to actually have. So I'm glad to see that when George Bush rang the bell earlier this week, Barack came out swinging.