"The rap against the United States is
well known by now:
Over the past eight years, we have embraced a reckless unilateral posture of action over analysis, discarding the "good process" of prudent, evidence-based policy debate in favor of the Nike Doctrine -- just do it, and clean up the mess later.
But seven years later, glorious victories, from Iraq to Afghanistan, have been slow in coming.
Secret prisons, torture, putting U.S. citizens and foreigners under surveillance -- or
sending armies into civilian populations to tease out friend from foe at the muzzle of a gun --
don't work very well. That's why, over the centuries, they've been discarded one by one.
But what happens next?
If ever there were a president who could credibly claim to signify a clean break from his predecessor, that commander in chief is Obama. But the United States also needs a plan that shows that what's coming
won't be business as usual.
But that's just the half of it. Much of this Herculean effort -- which will run Obama into the strongest collected interests and lobbies in Washington -- is simply to set the platform for the slow, humbling restoration of moral authority.
That's as much about what we do here in the United States --
how we, again, begin to lead by example -- as it is about our actions overseas.
During the presidential campaign, I interviewed a London radical with suspected connections to al-Qaeda. He was
particularly concerned about how Obama might be the agent of such change.
"Obama would be a nightmare for us," he said.
"He looks like the world, he knows Islam, his grandfather was a goat herder from Kenya, living like much of the world still lives. As president, he might finally unify the world's Muslim moderates, who outnumber us four or five to one. They know who we are, where we live. They could crush us."