In keeping with his campaign promise to talk to America's enemies without precondition, President Barack Obama plans to turn his charms on Myanmar's military junta.
Slowly, we're beginning to understand what hope and change were all about. Translation: Sure hope this change works.
It may be too soon to pass judgment on Mr. Obama's new foreign policy strategy, but early returns on his gamble that talking is the best cure are less than reassuring. Each time Mr. Obama extends a hand to one of the world's anti-American despots, he is rewarded with an insult (Venezuela's Hugo Chavez) or, perhaps, a missile display (North Korea and Iran).
Mr. Obama inarguably was elected in part as a reaction to George W. Bush's big-dawgness. A new American archetype, Mr. Obama is the anti-macho man, a new-age intellectual who defeated the old-guard warrior. Whether he can win with his wits in the larger theater remains to be seen, but watching could be painful.
The shift in policy toward Myanmar, for instance, was announced Monday following the annual theater of the absurd, aka the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Obama spoke eloquently there about the need for cooperation as the world tackles global problems, hitting his familiar theme of responsibility. All countries - not just the U.S. - have a role to play in combating crises around the world, he told the happy gathering of superpowers, banana republics, dictatorships and terrorist states.
Mr. Obama was followed by Libyan dictator Moammar Kadafi, with whom Mr. Obama shook hands at a dinner in July. It isn't helpful that Mr. Kadafi just weeks ago hosted a welcome-home celebration for the 1988 Lockerbie bomber-terrorist, who killed 270 people. But Mr. Kadafi's 96-minute diatribe - which included questioning the assassination of John F. Kennedy and expressing sympathy for the Taliban - was a prolonged assault on sane people everywhere.
In the midst of such charades, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's emerging Dirty Harry persona is oddly reassuring. She has become Mr. Obama's bad cop. On Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), she has promised to remain tough and continue sanctions pending credible democratic reforms. But, she has added dutifully, sanctions alone haven't gotten us very far.
Surely, talking is worth a shot. Or is it?
In the previous administration, the conventional wisdom was that talking to bad actors lent legitimacy where none was deserved. President George W. Bush, for instance, ignored Mr. Chavez, believing that acknowledgment was empowerment.
