U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul neatly summarized everything that is wrong with President Barack Obama’s foreign policy in an interview yesterday with National Public Radio (emphasis added):
There is no single path to democracy. And every society and every government and every country will find their own path. And we, as President Obama has said many, many times, we’re not going to get into the business of dictating that path, we’re just going to support what we like to call universal values. Not American values, not Western values, universal values.
McFaul’s primary responsibility as an ambassador is to represent the United States and its values.
If he believes otherwise; he should resign. If he has been ordered otherwise by the President of the United States, he should resign in protest.
McFaul is correct that democracy is not solely an American value, but it is inappropriate for him–or for the Obama administration–to appease the calculated anti-Americanism of the Russian (or any other) government by, in effect, throwing America under the bus.
That appeasement has been present in President Obama’s approach to foreign affairs from the very start of his administration, when he described his job as representing the Arab world to Americans as much as Americans to the Arab world, and speaking for the world in general, not just the United States:
And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy….
I think that what you’ll see is somebody who is listening, who is respectful, and who is trying to promote the interests not just of the United States, but also ordinary people who right now are suffering from poverty and a lack of opportunity…
There can be no clearer explanation of why the United States is failing to pursue its interests with the urgency and emphasis they demand–while at the same time appeasing anti-American regimes instead of promoting the democracy he purports to champion as a “universal” value.