Remember Gorbachev, that bold round-headed Russian tractor loving peasant-Secretary whom the West loved so much? The West loved him perhaps because he was the first one in the short but depressing succession of the Soviet leaders who did not really aspire to wipe out Poland from the face of the earth.
I remember him too, in a different way, though. Half of the country hated his guts back in the Soviet nightmare. Gorbachev was liked abroad but gradually became hated within his own country for the same reasons he was loved outside. He seemed not to be working in the best interests of his country, or let’s say, the interests that he was pursuing were far more interesting for the West than the people of the Soviet empire. As he was actively pursuing warm relations with the West, his own country was rapidly collapsing from within. Not that it was a country worth saving or that it was his fault or that he really didn’t care about his country. It just seemed that way.
Gorbachev’s regime was not only incompetent and corrupt, it was above all senseless. It encouraged that unhinged individual frenzy and ubiquitous anxiety of a coming collective disaster, both being vivid examples of a dying empire.
The regime was brutal in suppressing its own rebellious republics like Armenia, Lithuania and Georgia, and it was relentless in bounding its entire infrastructure to a foreign debt.
On the positive side Gorbachev became instrumental in dismantling the shaking Soviet machine. The downside of that upside: whenever confronted with a domestic problem Gorbachev would embark on a foreign trip or give a long speech (usually in a foreign country). He became the father that was never home and was gossiping about his family to his new sexy lover (That’s actually when I started drinking… at the 6th grade… My mother still blames Gorbachev for that).
Is Obama the American Gorbachev as the title of this post suggests? Yes and No. Yes because just like Gorbachev, Obama has so far demonstrated that he favors the positive international attitude more than the seemingly immediate self interest of his own country.
On the other hand, Obama is no Gorbachev because Gorbachev sort of tried to abandon socialism in favor of capitalism. Gorbachev also compromised and softened up because he trusted Reagan and knew that Americans really wanted peace. Moreover, even at the hottest point of his love affair with the West, Gorbachev still made sure that he looked like a leader of a relevant empire.
Does Obama honestly believe that by bowing to the Saudi king he could really change a perception or was it a knee jerk reaction of a kid whose educational background perhaps included the proper etiquette for greeting the head of a Caliphate? I really want to believe the former. It’s a complex world and in that world there are still some pictures of George W. Bush shaking hands with the same Saudi king. But Bush never bowed…and that’s diplomacy too.
All I ask from Obama now is- walk down the Chamberlain path, do your charming thing, seduce the terrorists but make sure you don’t overdo it and lose the home team in the process.” Or, in other words, when you kiss ass over there make sure that, here at home, it looks like you’re kicking it. You have a very dedicated media that can do it for you. This will be a very amazing diplomatic achievement… and a good back up plan just in case the Saudi king goes into his consecutive menopause and decides to, yet again sponsor terrorism.
Look, all this said, I hated when people went after Bush so viciously and senselessly and I will try not to do that to Obama. This piece is less of a critique and more of a comparison of two leaders of two big countries. Again, this comparison is not entirely accurate and/or scientific. I mean you can compare Bush to Brezhnev using the same template. Both invaded Afghanistan and stayed home more than they traveled. There was even a theory that the reason Brezhnev stayed home and Gorbachev traveled so much is because Brezhnev was fed from the outlet and Gorbachev worked on batteries. So, in this light, the real purpose of this comparison is more in the line of Plutarch’s ‘Parallel Lives’ of let’s say,“Alexander the king, and of Caesar, by whom Pompey was destroyed.”
Now many would elate by saying, “Good for Gorbachev, he helped to bring down the evil Soviet empire and Obama will bring down our arrogant imperialist way and make us a better and more respected and equal member of a global society.” Maybe, but just remember what happened to Russia after it went through that rushed deconstruction stage. It went through a decade of chaos, murders and depression and then snapped back into its imperialistic ambition with a now dangerous flavor of nationalism and a desire to support countries that would love to wipe out other countries from the world map.
If Obama is the post American captain destined to bring our spaceship down from the position of superpower to “a normal UN sanctioned operational mode” let’s hope for a smoother landing and a sharp difference from Gorbachev who neglected the fact that one can make a nuclear submarine feel like a raw boat for only as long as it is facing an iceberg.