Oct. 8, 2008 | Dear Camille,

I was actually leaning towards Obama before he stated his willingness to enter negotiations with Iran with no pre-conditions. This is frightening stuff here. My wife and I lived in Germany for five years until late 2006, and I worked in Baghdad during the better part of 2006. His offer is reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain, but I don't think Obama's motives are as sincere as Chamberlain's. Like most politicians, I believe Obama says what the people want to hear. He doesn't come across as a change agent.

Sincerely,
Philip Steelman


Your concern about the foreign-policy world-view of liberal Democrats is certainly justified. The university culture at Columbia and Harvard through which Obama passed has been drenched in a reflexive anti-Americanism for several decades. Armchair blame-America-first leftism is the default mode. Disdain for the military is rampant, and conservative voices are rarely heard.

However, your invocation of Neville Chamberlain may be a bit alarmist because there is no Hitler on the horizon -- just a series of regional petty dictators who, in my view, can be contained or neutralized through joint international efforts rather than open war. But the Chamberlain parallel cannot be entirely discounted, because British and European artists and intellectuals during that highly creative first generation of avant-garde modernism did indeed drift away from national affiliation into a chic, passive cosmopolitanism.

As an Obama supporter, however, I was not particularly troubled by his rather carelessly phrased response about negotiation without preconditions during a primary debate with Hillary Clinton. I don't believe that would in fact happen during an Obama administration, when the new president would have time to reflect and to absorb State Department briefing books. Surely the standard, prudent diplomatic protocols would kick into action.

I am well aware of the widespread conservative view of Obama's naivete and lack of preparation (Rush Limbaugh stingingly calls him a "man-child"). But I am one of the many who regard Obama as authentically inspirational -- as a leader appealing to our better nature rather than armoring us in eternal fear and paranoia against our fellow human beings. I remember how John F. Kennedy (the first politician I ever campaigned for) electrified young people and transformed our political reality, which was about to emerge from the long, grey slog of the Cold War.

What would concern me more about an Obama administration, given these rampant doubts, is the possibility that he would jump more readily toward war in order to prove his toughness. We don't need more foolish military incursions, bogging us down in regions whose vicious factionalism has boiled irresolvably for 3,000 years. Where our national interest is not directly at stake, we should mind our own business. Israel, on the other hand, whose very survival might be menaced by a nuclear Iran, would always have the right of preemptive self-defense.