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The Obama Doctrine: Blame the Capitalists?

5:03 PM, Mar 24, 2008 • By MICHAEL GOLDFARB
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I haven't read Spencer Ackerman's piece on the Obama doctrine (I'm not a masochist), but Ambinder flags this graph:

They envision a doctrine that first ends the politics of fear and then moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither -- an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership.

Dignity promotion? Yeah, that doesn't sound like an empty slogan. And the idea that "misery" breeds anti-Americanism? Please. There's no anti-Americanism in the Congo, and you can't get much more miserable than that. Europe, on the other hand, is about as anti-American as you can get--it has nothing to do with poverty. And in fact the relationship between poverty and anti-Americanism appears to be just the opposite. All the 9/11 terrorists were from wealthy families. And look at Hollywood! Nobody hates America like the rich, because hating America is a luxury.

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