David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, published another on-the-record interview with President Obama newyorker/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/the-obama-tapes.html David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, published another on-the-record interview with President Obama. newyorker/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/the-obama-tapes.html “My working premise, what I believe in my gut, is that America has been an enormous force for good in the world, and that if you look at the ledger and you say, What have we gotten right and what have we gotten wrong, on balance, we have helped to promote greater freedom and greater prosperity for more people, and been willing, as I think I said to you earlier, to advance causes even if they weren’t in our narrow self-interest in a way that you’ve never seen any dominant power do in the history of the world. “And so, to apologize for certain historic events out of context, I think, wouldn’t be telling an accurate story. On the other hand, I do think that part of effective diplomacy, part of America maintaining its influence in a world in which we remain the one indispensable power, but in which you’ve got a much more multipolar environment, is for other people to know that we understand their stories as well, and that we can see how they have come to certain conclusions or understandings about their history, their economies, the conflicts they’ve suffered. Because, if they think we understand their frame of reference, then they’re more likely to listen to us and to work with us. “So for me to acknowledge the fact that we were involved in the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran is not to pick at an old scab or to do a bunch of Monday-morning quarterbacking. It’s to say to the Iranian people, We understand why you might have some suspicions about us; we’ve got some suspicions about you because you have held our folks hostage and murdered our people and threatened our allies. So, now that we understand each other, can we do business? “That, I think, is useful and important precisely because we are far and away the most powerful country in the world. And, having lived overseas, the one thing I know is how much the world admires America, but also how much the world thinks America has no clue as to what’s going on outside our borders.” Later, he added, “Now, if other countries don’t think we see them or know them or understand them, then they may grudgingly coöperate with us where they have to, because it’s in their self-interest, but, at the margins—where we need them to participate in Iran’s sanctions, or we need them to work with us around a non-proliferation agenda—a population that thinks we hear them, we understand their history, is more likely to support their leaders when they work with us. That’s part of exercising effective power in the world.” I asked Obama if he would say he was the first President to acknowledge these historical events in the way that he does. “I think, if you look at Kennedy’s best speeches, the notion that we are connected with folks around the world, and that we lead not simply by the force of arms but because of values and ideals, and that we have to uphold them, is part of what made Kennedy an inspiration not just in this country but around the world,” Obama said. “And he may not have spoken about certain specifics in the same way, but partly that’s because he lived in a more innocent time, in some ways. “When I make a speech now, it is broadcast around the world in an instant, and there are entire blogs devoted to picking apart every factual assertion that is being made, and people expect a level of accuracy and understanding that wouldn’t have been the case in 1961 or ’62.”
Posted on: Fri, 24 Jan 2014 16:43:46 +0000
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