In the last couple of days, the word "appeasement" has found its way back into our vocabulary. Several Republican candidates for the presidency have charged that President Obama's foreign policy amounts to appeasement of terrorists and other enemies of our nation. The word, of course, conjures up the image of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain failing to stand up to fascism prior to World War II. The charge, then, is that the President of the United States is selling out his nation by caving in to America's foreign enemies. The President's defenders have jumped all over the inappropriateness of the charge, rightly pointing out not only that it is in and of itself ludicrous but also that it tends to undermine national security by projecting a lack of national support for our foreign policy among key national leaders. The President himself offered a brief but effective comeback, stating (here), ""Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22 out of 30 top al-Qaida leaders who have been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that."The President's Republican detractors also decry the his supposed failure to be tough on Iran without being able to offer any constructive alternatives themselves. Their one suggestion is that the President should declare his unwillingness to negotiate with the Iranian government, which on the face of it makes no sense at all. IF the goal of our foreign policy is to promote our own national security in the framework of a more peaceful world, it seems only logical that we should be willing to talk to anybody, anytime if such talks could meet these ends. And in the world's eyes, we will always look stronger if we are willing to talk. The President has kept enough American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and sent enough drones to assassinate enough terrorist leaders to render charges of weakness and appeasement silly.
But, from what might be a Christian perspective, it is the President's termination of our post-9/11 guns blazing cowboy foreign policy that deserves true recognition, most notably in the case of Libya. Projecting the right balance of power and restraint, President Obama dealt with a people's revolution, a tyrant, and a potentially explosive international situation in pretty much the right way. Violence is always to be regretted, and the ethical question of its use is always a subject for theological debate. In that debate, there is a case to be made for the near term use of limited amounts of violence as a means for promoting a less violent world for the long term. President Obama's foreign policy reflects that approach, and he certainly deserves credit for effectively creating conditions that are more likely to make the world less violent and our nation thereby more secure. Whether or not he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize when he won it, he surely does now.
