Krauthammer: Obama's 'Kick Me' Diplomacy

Opinion | Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 8:42:10 am PST

Interestingly, the Washington Post editors apparently toned down the title on Charles Krauthammer’s latest op-ed, from Obama’s ‘Kick Me’ Diplomacy (still visible in the print version) to Obama’s Supine Diplomacy (but they forgot to change the page title).

With a grinning Goliath staggering about sporting a “kick me” sign on his back, even reputed allies joined the fun. Pakistan freed from house arrest A.Q. Khan, the notorious proliferator who sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Ten days later, Islamabad capitulated to the Taliban, turning over to its tender mercies the Swat Valley, 100 miles from the capital. Not only will sharia law now reign there, but members of the democratically elected secular party will be hunted as the Pakistani army stands down.

These Pakistani capitulations may account for Obama’s hastily announced 17,000-troop increase in Afghanistan even before his various heralded reviews of the mission have been completed. Hasty, unexplained, but at least something. Other than that, a month of pummeling has been met with utter passivity.

I would like to think the supine posture is attributable to a rookie leader otherwise preoccupied (i.e., domestically), leading a foreign policy team as yet unorganized if not disoriented. But when the State Department says that Hugo Chávez’s president-for-life referendum, which was preceded by a sham government-controlled campaign featuring the tear-gassing of the opposition, was “for the most part . . . a process that was fully consistent with democratic process,” you have to wonder if Month One is not a harbinger of things to come.