This is a good speech, a speech with a hopeful vision that builds on the past successes and values of the U.S. especially building on the progressive presidents of the past. It's a good, strong speech of optimism for a progressive candidate. I think the underlying reality of the world he is describing involves a U.S. that is weaker and has more limits in movement. But a candidate must focus on opportunity and hope, and attempt to address the real threats of proliferation, terrorism, trade imbalance, and poverty, while attempting to heal the harm that has been done by the previous administration.

First, I think his idea of increasing foreign aid as a means of fighting terrorism is a very progressive and potentially effective strategy.  

Second, I would note that he cited the Dick Lugars and Sam Nunns of the world in reference to nuclear disarmorment b/c those two guys have been very good on that issue.  Not so much on a LOT of others, but I think it's fair to say that both are "progressive" on the issue he's talking about there.  

Overall, I really like what Obama said here.  Maybe that means I'm not "progressive" from Matt's point of view -- could be I suppose.  Although I was under the impression that there was a bit of wiggle room regarding what THE progressive foreign policy position is.  :)

I'll be genuinely curious to hear what others have to say about this.  Ultimately, discussion about substantive ideas is a good thing, so here's hoping this doesn't turn into EITHER a pure love or hate -fest.

I assumed I would be writing a critical comment, but I can't find too much to complain about here. I will try and pretend the whole "expanding the military" thing is just Obama's attempt at appearing strong on defense. Otherwise, I think his overall approach (aid + pressure + diplomacy + trade + leading by example) is the right one.

It is easy to attack his emphasis on trade, only because the history of multinational trade agreements is stained. I would fully support further efforts to liberalize trade IF it a) gave equal bargaining power to developing nations and b) including strong regulations on labor and the environment. Remember, trade can be good or bad - just like capitalism in general can be good or bad. Both depend on regulation to bring out the positives and suppress the negatives.
The question is, does Obama have the guts and the persistence to insist on STRONG regulation of international trade? No speech can tell us that.

for you to go straight to the Hamilton Project in the future seeing as how Obama's basically pushing their ideas.  Market based solutions, profits before people, and no problem with the status quo.  

It appears that Sen. Obama doesn't understand that the problem is that sometime in the early 1970's the neoliberal hordes destroyed the post war social contract, and replaced the idea that equality is a good thing with a myopic focus on making more money.

We don't need a Bill Clinton or an Al Smith, we need an FDR, someone who will change the way that the country works, and will push this country back towards social democracy and away from the social darwinism that dominates economic thinking in our time.

I have a headache, and you want me to wade through that whole speech before I react to it!

Well, I will after I get home, but I was getting all fired up to pump up why this makes it all the more essential for my Congressman Tim Ryan to make a run at Voinavich's Senate seat in 2010, and you brought me to a screaching halt.

I was at least a little concerned about the idea of leaving combat troops in Iraq, but this part made me feel a lot better about it. It makes the idea seem like common sense, which thankfully re-enforces what I'd believed he would say on the matter.

That is why my plan provides for an over-the-horizon force that could prevent chaos in the wider region, and allows for a limited number of troops to remain in Iraq to fight al Qaeda and other terrorists.

But my plan also makes clear that continued U.S. commitment to Iraq depends on the Iraqi government meeting a series of well-defined benchmarks necessary to reach a political settlement. Thus far, the Iraqi government has made very little progress in meeting any of the benchmarks, in part because the President has refused time and again to tell the Iraqi government that we will not be there forever. The President's escalation of U.S. forces may bring a temporary reduction in the violence in Baghdad, at the price of increased U.S. casualties - though the experience so far is not encouraging. But it cannot change the political dynamic in Iraq. A phased withdrawal can.

I'll have to give it a more thoughtful reading later, but my first reaction after reading through it quickly is that there isn't anything new.  It's a lot of putting things back to how they were 8 years ago without a lot of originality.  That's obviously nothing to sneeze at, and so I'm not debating the virtues of what he proposes or envisions, but it didn't jump out at me as a bold new way of thinking about the world.  And I thought (perhaps erroneously) that a new vision was his big selling point.

Unless I missed something, it lacked  what I want to hear from all the candidates: some principles or guidelines dictating when the U.S. should military force--that is, an alternative to Bush's doctrine of premeptive war and American exceptionalism. To be more specific, I expected a much stronger condemnation of preemptive war. Here's what he said:

"No President should ever hesitate to use force -
unilaterally if necessary - to protect ourselves and
our vital interests when we are attacked or imminently
threatened. But when we use force in situations other
than self-defense, we should make every effort to
garner the clear support and participation of others -
the kind of burden-sharing and support President
George H.W. Bush mustered before he launched Operation
Desert Storm."

"When we use force in situations other than self-defense"...Hmm, okay, when, I want to know, should we use force when it's not in our self-defense. Is he talking about, what, intervention in humanitarian crises or is he talking about wars like the war in Iraq?

From this speech, we have no way of knowing if he thinks the war would have been wrong even if Iraq had had WMD. What lessons does he draw from Iraq? That we should build a coalition before we go to war. That diplomacy is preferable? No shit.

To be fair, I've heard none of the other candidates offer a compelling philosophical framework for the use of military force.
I hope Edwards is more skeptical of the benefits of military force--more liberal as opposed to neoliberal--but I expect that when all is said and done, all of the leading candidates will offer a similar moderately liberal foreign policy.

Mixed feelings:

I like that Obama is actually producing substance for a change. It makes him seem more Presidential.

I like the general tone and  scope of his speech. He's pragmatic, and stuff like this convinces me that he's the most "electable" Democrat, if "electability" even exists. I don't mean pragmatic as in triangulation, I mean pragmatic as in politically grounded.

I'm not sure about his plan to expand the military. If it is meant as a plan to restore it to its pre-Iraq strength, then I'm all for it. If it's a huge ramping up of the defense budget a la Reagan, then absolutely not.

I dig his general theme of diplomacy, and I love his claim that he would slow down OUR production of nuclear warheads and serve as an example for the world to wind down nuclear proliferation. I also liked that he would rely on the UN and NATO, instead of only ourselves, to conduct diplomacy. There's safety in numbers.

I HATE "weapons of mass annihilation." Way to rhetorically one-up George WMD Bush.

And finally, the general mundane-ness of his ideas left a yucky taste in my mouth. I felt like Obama flipped through some center-left think-tank's pamphlet or something and picked the prettiest sounding ideas and sprinkled them with a pinch of his own special charm. For a campaign that claims to be about big ideas, this speech was surprisingly (or not) lacking.

One point of contention: my understanding is that he wouldn't make a trade agreement that displaced workers, not that more trade agreements are the right strategy. Also, I am not familiar with "cap and trade," so I have no opinion on his global warming policy.

More free trade...that's really great politics and policy.

Didn't Mark Schmitt write an article in the Nation last week that said Obama was thoroughly not of the 1990s?  What a crock.

Trade Agreements DO NOT EQUAL Americans Lose More Jobs. That is a fallacy of the left. Yes, it is based on the reality of multinational trade agreements thus far, but it is not an inevitable outcome of increased trade.

Not that I have full faith in Obama (or any candidate) to work towards equitable international trade that seeks to secure American jobs, expand labor rights and safeguard the environment - but I will not write someone off simply because they are a proponent of trade. And I urge you not to do so as well.

More like Clinton-Tsongas.

Two Rockefeller Republicans.

Big whup.

i never realized there was a difference between being a progressive and a neoliberal.. i've learned that on this site..

i always thought they were the same... i loved howard dean and consider myself pretty leftwing but i believe in free trade and globalization.... i don't believe in protectionism , isolationism etc

i'm not sure what i am anymore i guess... i know i'm also a libertarian when it comes to personal morality... and i also believe govt should help people..

but on this site- particularly on the thread about france where i wrote about how impressed i was with sarkozy and was practically told to get out of here- i have realized i may not be welcome here  because i don't fit people's definition of what a progressive is..

i always assumed everyone in the US was a neoliberal... its only in countries like argentina  etc where i thought neoliberal was a dirty word..those countries have omnipotent and useless govts, a lack of respect for the law, excessive regulations that stifle people and force them to leave, excessive trade barriers which lead to shoddy local industries where cars cost much more than in places that can freely import..and they made the ford falcon until the late 1990s! a car that in the US had a heyday in the 50s! thats protectionism for you!..

of course argentina's brief stab at greatness was due to 30 years of neoliberal rule.. the alternative of populism and demogoguery is chavez...  is that what progressivism is?

i've become confused and will look to take a sabbathical from this website.

I'm not sure if I'm being supportive or critical of Obama when I say this, but I don't think his candidacy is predicated on the notion that he has the best policy positions and proposals.

So wonks aren't gonna much like him. (For the record, I'm a strong Edwards-leaner at the moment.) And perhaps wonks can't even really understand his allure (or at least his allure as I explain it).

As I understand, it doesn't  make much sense to complain about growing the military (which is fine with me, btw, depending) or keeping troops in Iraq or not supporting a carbon tax. I mean, we can criticise those things, but they're not central to his appeal or his candidacy or even, perhaps, his potential.

Because this is the Obama Plan:

1) Win the D nomination with a risk-adverse centrist-sounding platform and campaign.

2. Win the general so resoundingly, so completely overwhelmingly, that he transforms the country from a 50/50 nation into a 60/40 nation ... thus changing everything. (And don't forget coattails!)
   
3. Govern as a centrist--maybe, we'll see, plenty of time to simply govern as an intelligent president, dealing with issues as they arise--in an environment in which the political reality is deeply transformed.

I certainly don't  think Obama's lying about holding centrist positions, I just think that the whole basis of his candidacy is disengaged from policy.

As a Democratic primary speech, about an 8 on a scale of 10. For the general election, probably closer to a 9. Either way, current polling -- Obama's comfortable margins over Edwards among likely primary / caucus voters, coupled with Edwards' occasionally stronger polling performance in the general v. Giuliani -- suggests that Obama could get a little less cautious and a little more progressive. There is time for him to do that -- and he should. Still, given where we are in the campaign, this was a very good -- perhaps even great -- speech.

Three rhetorical misses from the prepared text, which I hope were corrected in the live performance:

1) "...while there will always be those who succumb to hate and strap bombs to their bodies, there are millions more who want to take another path...." (emphasis mine)

At the very least, should have said "may always be."

2) "...until we change our approach in Iraq, it will be increasingly difficult to refocus our efforts on the challenges in the wider region -- on the conflict in the Middle East, where Hamas and Hezbollah feel emboldened and Israel's prospects for a secure peace seem uncertain...." (emphasis mine)

Should have avoided the politically obvious and cynical mischaracterization that "Israel is the good guy, Palestine is the bad guy" and found a way to say that Palestinian enfranchisement is a necessary part of the equation.

3) In recapping, at the end of the speech, his five foreign policy priorities, Obama failed to mention the first one: Ending the war in Iraq.

As far as it goes -- and that is an important caveat -- Obama gets a B+/A- on this one. But it does reinforce the emerging wisdom that Obama needs Richardson as VP. That would be a devastating ticket.

Aaannnddd, my suspicions are confirmed.  No thanks, Barry.

Matt Thanks for steering the debate on the speech.

Things I liked:a lot
-Doubling foreign aid
-Global Education Fund
-International fuel bank
-Nuclear disarmament
-Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy
-Rhetorical flourishes (choked up a bit when he was talking about torture)

I'm a little wary about increasing the military, but it doesn't seem like that bad an idea when you consider how broken it'll be in a couple years.  Also, while a carbon tax would be great, it may not be politically viable, nor does it easily integrate with the rest of the world in combatting CO2 emissions (relative to a cap and trade system).  

And I don't think there's anything wrong with leaving a small contingent of troops in Iraq, with the consent of the Iraqis.

I thought it was a great speech, nothing spectacular but a very good vanilla foundation. Here are my observations...

1) any increase to our military should come through the Guard and Reserves to make it harder, not easier to activate for wars of choice, it would be more complete to propose where the funding would come from but I'm not sure it would be smart politics, we DO need more troops and we NEED to cut Defense spending. Obama left out the hard choice of what systems to cut.

2) the Nuclear Fuel Bank sounds like a great idea but if it's so important - $50 million dollars is a drop in the bucket. That's 1/2 the cost of a single F-22 fighter plane. It costs $2 billion to build one 1,000-megawatt nuclear plant. Obama should provide a more realistic funding figure.

3) Obama sounds like he means it on fighting corruption in our government and around the world, that's one of the best themes in the speech. He mentioned corruption in several contexts (LatAm, Africa, our own goverment).

4) "Studies show that with each degree of warming, rice yields - the world's most significant crop - fall by 10%. By 2050 famine could displace more than 250 million people worldwide." - this kind of big picture strategic thinking is impressive

5) "We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy." - this is the one line in the whole speech I see about trade. Is that one line worth all the criticism he's getting on trade in these comments?

6) Iraq. Iraq is the most tepid part of the speech but I can see why that would be the case. Iraq is the most pressing issue and future decisions will be shaped more by conditions that this speech. Matt and many above are correct to say that stationing troops in Iraq is a kind of imperialism   but ultimately is Obama going to fight the Iraqis for this force? I'm certain that any of the Iraqi groups (Sunni, Shia, Kurd) would be happy to accept any US intelligence and covert support to root out Al-Qaeda on their own. I'm fairly certain this is how things will ultimately play out

7) Obama loves him some Sen. Lugar. Don't be suprised if Sen. Lugar is Secretary of State in the Obama Administration.

8) Obama is running on humility, competence, an mutual respect. It's an awesome contrast to the current administration. It's not going to please policy wonks and political diehards but I think it's a winning theme for Obama and our country.

5) "We cannot negotiate trade agreements to help spur development in poor countries so long as we provide no meaningful help to working Americans burdened by the dislocations of a global economy." - this is the one line in the whole speech I see about trade. Is that one line worth all the criticism he's getting on trade in these comments?

Yes.

I have a big problem with this statement, and not because Bush has used it in the most patronizing possible way.

Obama: "I believe that the single most important job of any President is to protect the American people."

I don't like it because I don't accept it. The President takes an oath to protect The Constitution, not the people,  and George Bush missed that and tried to fob off this other version of reality on us. Bush so made me cringe. I don't want any president protecting me or mine; I've been pretty good at that and of course our city supports firefighters, police, and so on, and we vote for good government. What I want from the federal government is not a promise of safety but the promise of justice for all citizens.

Obama: "And I am equally convinced that doing that job effectively in the 21st century will require a new vision of American leadership and a new conception of our national security - a vision that draws from the lessons of the past, but is not bound by outdated thinking."

I don't care for platitudes. My politics comes with a different stlye, more rough hewn.

I'm sorry and surprised at Obama speaking so like President Clinton. My voting kids adore him and want me to love him too.  I'm a populist progressive - yes I know what that is - so my politics are just different from Obama's and the Clintons. Of course I'll work for the Clintons or Obama or Richardson like I did for Kerry if it comes to that - hundreds of calls and doorbells.

But just once before I die I'd like to have a champion of the ordinary people, someone with my populist politics, in the WH.

Expanding the military.  This means,in short, that the bad thing about Iraq is that we lost so in the future we should have a bigger military so we can "win" wars like this.  I am afraid that the larger the military the greater the temptation to use it.  As Albright complained to then chairman of joint of chiefs, why do we have such a big military if we don't use it.

I would feel much better if one of these guys could just come out and admit that the problem is not just Bush incompetence, but also a military that is too large and has too much influence.

But groan, such are the choices  I am a likely Obama supporter.  I fear that no politician can cure America's addiction to its militarism, probably the only thing that can is national bankrupcy.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for Supreme Court Justices! It's a place for careful but brilliant thinking.

This doesn't do much to change the terms of the debate. It's more like a grab-bag of popular phrases: "we must be ready to use force, unilaterally if necessary", "staying on the offence," etc. It washes back and forth from progressive to hawkish rhetoric, leaving me with little real impression of what he's all about. It's also thin on specifics and pushes a lot of fear buttons.

It's also got too much starry-eyed American Exceptionalism in it for me, and not enough frank realism. I don't think "our beacon of hope" can really stop people from wanting to kill themselves to remove our military footprint from the middle east.

I would like a statement which more directly rejects the War on Terror as a framing issue. I would like to see someone looking beyond the post-cold-war unipolar dynamic (which I see as fatally unsustainable) towards greater regional responsibility. American leadership is fine, necessary even, but in what direction are we leading? It's got to be towards a more distributed balance of power.

I like the framing of global warming in national security terms, but I'm no expert on the policy there. It's also sort of a footnote to the "international institutions" part of his speech.

Finally, I'm not opposed to expanding the number of military personnel, but I'd like to see that coupled with a pledge to cut legacy pork projects like missile defense, next-gen fighters, artillery, etc. That could actually bring pentagon spending down and free up money for health care and other domestic economic infrastructure.

It's a good speech.  Not great, but it's good. In some ways, it's the minimum we can expect out of any candidate.  Basically, he's proposing that our foreign policy be non-ideological and that the people who execute it are competent.  Nothing to get too excited about.

Dick Durbin's comment on Hardball this evening were brilliant, and really build Obama's case.

On the other hand, Matthews ripped Clinton to shreds.

I think we're pulling teeth here guys. While the global carbon tax is different than cap-and-trade, who knows which one would be more effective?

And while Richardson calls for no residual force, I doubt that a select group of Special Forces would not remain in Iraq for selected missions.

Most of the policy differences on our side of the aisle are about semantics and emphasis. I sincerely doubt that any of these administrations would differ greatly on policy. I could be wrong, but seriously.

One problem I had with the speech (which I liked by and large) was that it seemed to represent every major foreign policy issue at root as a matter of security.

We must lead by building a 21st century military to ensure the security of our people and advance the security of all people. We must lead by marshalling a global effort to stop the spread of the world's most dangerous weapons. We must lead by building and strengthening the partnerships and alliances necessary to meet our common challenges and defeat our common threats.

I have a problem with this kind of rhetoric because I think it reinforces the notion that the only valid argument about why we should care about events in foreign countries is if we might die as a result. If you look at the speech, Obama makes that type of argument a couple of times - progressive arguments about global interconnectedness in terms of maintaining our security. I appreciate his novel use of this argument, in a sense he is inverting it's meaning, but ultimately it might have been better if he had argued that we should care about foreign lands and peoples even in instances where our own security isn't threatened. Reasonably speaking, I suppose this is about as far a major party politician could go in challenging the people's assumptions about the centrality of "security" to foreign policy.

Also, Obama repeats a line of reasoning central to the war in Iraq that I wish more politicians would take on directly.

But while sustaining our technological edge will always be central to our national security, the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face.

At times, it appears Obama is arguing that war between nation-states no longer poses the central (or even a main) threat to international peace and prosperity. He makes the point implicitly by arguing that the real threats are decentralized, transnational threats (global warming, leaderless terror cells). Non-state actors and transnational threats are the epicenters of global instability. He is  making a serious mistake if when he argues that putting boots on the ground can be an effective strategy for stopping terrorist acts. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a situation where we need to put a large number of troops on the ground to prevent a terrorist act, or stop a terrorist. It is much more likely that if troops hit the ground to "fight terrorism" that  it is already too late.

I don't think Obama would disagree with any of that, but in talking about boots on the ground with reference to fighting terror he is reinforcing conceptions of "the war on terror" which he should be challenging. On the other hand, he should receive kudos for refraining from using the "GWOT" misnomer.

Overall, I thought the speech was pretty good, but it does demonstrate how Obama will walk up to the limits of acceptable rhetoric and sort of pantomime stepping over the line - but never actually does. Long-term, this is probably an effective strategy for winning the support of mainstream voters. After all, the limits of discourse are there for a reason. This tendency to stop short of challenging people's assumptions will eventually call into question his claims about the transformative nature of his campaign. Optimus Prime, he is not.

Comparing Obama's speech to Hillary's, Hillary emphasises international cooperation and institutions while Obama focuses on  building and using American military power. My own inclinations are toward Hllary's liberal internationalism, though I can understand the appeal of American exceptionalism and force. The latter may have more general election appeal.

People in the liberal blogosphere have reversed their positions on the spectrum of liberal foreign policy, hopefully Obama's speech corrects that misperception.

1.  He said:

We now know how badly this Administration squandered that opportunity. In 2002, I stated my opposition to the war in Iraq, not only because it was an unnecessary diversion from the struggle against the terrorists who attacked us on September 11th, but also because it was based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the threats that 9/11 brought to light. I believed then, and believe now, that it was based on old ideologies and outdated strategies - a determination to fight a 21st century struggle with a 20th century mindset.

I just wonder why he has not articulated this to us for all these years?

2.  His speech calls for us to be the moral leader of the free world that everyone again looks to, but the world will not ever listen to us unless we show we can take care of our own business right here at home.  We are no example and have no right to tell anyone what is best unless we take bold steps to fix our problems.  His speech was short in this area.  Without addressing our own deficiencies as a society, who are we to preach to others?

OK, but when are we gonna get the t-shirts made?  I mean, that's when you know you've arrived....  ;-)

Where is the audacity?!

He calls out to a new generation to take up the call to renew America and our place in the world. He made his announcement speech right here in Springfield, taking up the mantle of Lincoln and ML King.

This is just standard lukewarm internationalism functioning via neo-liberalism. Terrorism is just one manageable risk of Glorious Globalizaton. This is about as bold as Milquetoast.

Rather Clintonesque. But then Obama has distinguished himself as a terrific cat burgler of Clinton ideas. Obama's recipe. Two heaping tablespoons of Clinton ideas, carefully add a teaspoon of Edwards true progressivism, stir and serve promptly.

Actually, I think "robliberal" is spot on when he note "Obama is trying to run slightly to the right of Clinton to try to head off the experience and national security concerns."

Frankly though, if he is going to steal Clinton clothes I'd much prefer the original than  the Xerox version.

There were more than thirty of them, all handwritten by my father, all addressed to colleges and universities across America, all filled with the hope of a young man who dreamed of more for his life.

It is because someone in this country answered that prayer that I stand before you today with faith in our future, confidence in our story, and a determination to do my part in writing our country's next great chapter.

Lucky to be in the audience today, I teared up at this point. Basing one's life goals, at least in part, on a parent's goals is familiar to me, and to people in my circle of friends. I liked this personal ending, because throughout the speech he referred to places he'd visited and seen the evidence jobs not completed, lining them up as projects for him to accomplish as president. Often, Obama then asks the audience to join him as participants in accomplishing these goals.

This is appropriate:

One good test as to whether folks are doing interesting work is, Can they surprise me? And increasingly, when I [listen to Obama], it doesn't surprise me. It's all just exactly what I would expect.

haha! i like this one. throw his words back at him.

obviously, he surprised folks in a twisted way; so i guess he's doing interesting stuff.

I still don't see how North Korea, Iran or anyone else is going to respond positively to, "You get rid of your nukes or else! What's that? Get rid of OUR nukes? You're kidding, right?"

earlier in the day.  I didn't like it, and thought Richardson's earlier one was much better.

I am an internationalist in the FDR/Harry Truman mold as opposed to the unilateralists who have been running the country the past 6 yrs.  Overall, I liked the speech especially the idea of working with our allies.  It is going to take decades to restore our credibility in the world and whoever wins in 2008 is going to have their work cut out for themselves.

I am not sure I like the idea of expanding the military although there is a part of me that is intrigued by Charlie Rangel's idea of reinstating the draft in order to prevent another Iraq.  Bush would never have gotten away with it if a large percentage of people 18-30 had a chance of going to fight but I am not sure that is a good reason to start the draft again. I am struggling with that one.

There are only 2 circumstances under which I would support leaving troops in Iraq - as part of a regional/UN peacekeeping force or special forces/covert operations to deal with terrorist threats.  Amazing that 4 years ago there were no terrorists in Iraq and today it is the new Al Qaeda training ground.  What a disaster this has become.

Trade is not a word that raises red flags to me.  I think you have to take each agreement as it comes.  Matt's idea of removing fast track authorization might be the best way to deal with it.  Let them negotiate the deal and then we can review it and see if it makes sense.

It is just one speech but an interesting one.  I continue to look around for a Pres candidate.  Thank god I have until Feb 5, 2008.

Granted I read it quickly but nothing about Darfur?