The Neocons and Hating Everyone

While there are times (becoming ever more frequent as the bar exam approaches) when I, too, feel like I hate everyone, I don't think I've ever felt that quite as frequently as the neocons, and especially Charles Krauthammer appear to. He had a column in the Washington Post today complaining about Obama, as he is wont to do, because Obama is *gasp* trying to create better relations with Russia.

As I assume everyone knows, Russia is a nuclear power and has been doing a somewhat less-than-fantastic job of keeping up security on its nuclear weapons in the last fifteen or twenty years. It also tends to have somewhat different views from the U.S. as to the best approach to dealing with other nations, particularly Iran. It's also had a somwhat volatile political atmosphere for the last, well, forever, really, but Putin's machinations have been tending towards attempts at restoring totalitarian rule in Russia in the last decade. So, I understand why Krauthammer would be suspicious of them. However, hasn't he ever heard the saying "keep your friends close, but your enemies closer?"

Meanwhile, it isn't as though Obama's inviting them over to become our new closest allies or anything of the sort. He's merely trying to smooth diplomatic relations between our two countries, which had been deteriorating towards the end of Bush's presidency. This is much like the whole fake-controversy over Iran during the election here, when people claimed that Obama was basically going to start hanging out with Ahmadinejad and perhaps even Bin Laden, simply because he said he didn't think that freezing people out of diplomatic relations was the best way to, well, have good diplomatic relations with other countries, and that he would like to start moving towards a situation where there could be talks with Iran.

I suppose what I'm driving at here is that Obama's approaches to all of these countries are methodical, and generally aimed towards preserving and increasing diplomatic relations. Meanwhile, the neocons scream bloody murder any time Obama isn't just a complete warhawk and basically threatening to bomb everyone who ever does anything we don't like. Now, I clearly disagree with the neocons on most things, but I admit that, at least the ones publishing in major national newspapers, are generally intelligent and well-educated. I do not, however, understand how anybody who fits that description can possibly think that America is currently in a position where we can just take on all comers, and refuse to work with anybody! I'm not sure that Krauthammer and the other neocons who espouse these various positions realize that's what it looks like they're advocating for, but it really does seem to be the case. If we're worried about Russia, it seems to me that the obvious thing to do is to try to work to overcome the problem. It's not so easy to do that when you refuse to talk to the other countries.

It reminds me of something David Sedaris wrote in one of his books - and I'm paraphrasing, because I can't remember which one it's in - but he said something about how as Americans, we often go around thinking our country's the best, because we're taught all our lives that it is, but what we fail to realize is that other countries have nationalistic slogans of their own - and none of those is "We're Number Two!" Other countries don't want to be treated like disobedient children by America when we disagree with them - nor should they be. We can't just try to send them to their rooms without dinner. We have to engage with them. That is the only way we can truly make the world a safer and better place.