On Sunday he was in Afghanistan, talking to President Hamid Karzai and American military officers and ostentatiously supping with U.S. soldiers. Monday it was Iraq, talking to Gen. David Petraeus, the American commander there and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Today it is a half-day in Israel briefly meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the rest of the Jewish state's political leaders, followed by a half-day in the West Bank meeting with Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. And then on Wednesday it is off to Europe to do some fist-bumping -- no time for much else -- with the leaders of the European allies.
And then Barack Obama, the presumptive candidate of the Democratic party for the United States presidency will head home, claiming to have established his bona fides in international affairs. Only in America, where general geographic knowledge does not extend even to Alaska, where political acumen tends to stop at the state line, could such a claim be credible, but the smart money today says that Mr. Obama will be the next president of the United States.
The junior senator from Illinois wants to put more soldiers into Afghanistan, where the war is not going well. That's a good idea of which Canadians in particular should approve. Unfortunately, he wants take them from Iraq, where the war is going well, a possible case of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. That's a bad idea that Americans in particular, who have given so much there, should condemn.
When it comes to Israel and its Arab enemies, Mr. Obama sits nicely on the fence, undecided yet as to where the most votes will lie in the November election, a radical abdication of a deeply felt American responsibility to Israel. In Europe, where he is wildly popular, he need promise nothing because most European leaders, most Europeans, will warmly welcome him as a replacement for President George W. Bush.
None of this qualifies Mr. Obama in any sense on the international stage. America's allies might have more confidence in him if he were to take clearer stands on issues, but as he begins to firm up on Afghanistan and starts to waffle on Iraq he looks increasingly shallow.
He was not served well by having to follow in the footsteps of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose visit to Iraq, Israel and the West Bank immediately preceded his own.
Like the junior senator from Illinois, Mr. Brown intends to reduce his country's military presence in Iraq, but Britain has largely done its job there at great political cost to the Labour government. The prime minister was firm, however, in his commitment to Israel, even though that is not a particularly popular political position in Britain today, while being sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. Neither does Mr. Brown have to fist bump with other European leaders, having won their respect over the last decade as one of Britain's most competent finance ministers.
Mr. Obama has no such record of accomplishment or consistency. He does not need to travel so much as he needs to lay down a trail of principles that can assure Americans and an anxious world that he actually believes in something besides himself.
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