Obama’s Foreign Policy: What approach now? By Paul Crist Since taking office, President Barack Obama has had to grapple with an endless list of thorny issues, but few areas of policy are more of a minefield than foreign policy. In the Middle East, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere, he faces challenges that defy solutions. Two hundred years of history provide him with role models and approaches that should guide him through the global minefield he faces. But who should he emulate to ensure a successful foreign policy? What foreign policy philosophy most closely resembles his basic instinct? Which constituencies will support, and which will oppose, the policy choices he makes? And what are the domestic political implications of the foreign policy choices he makes? American foreign policy through the centuries has been characterized by four fundamentally different philosophies that can be traced to four great historical figures: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, and Woodrow Wilson. Hamilton favored a realist policy that included a strong national government, powerful military, and the promotion of American business and economic interests through strength and engagement. It was Hamiltonian realism that kept George H. W. Bush from pursuing Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War. Bush Sr. was tempted by the goal of toppling the Iraqi regime, but his strong realist instinct prevailed, understanding as he did that the political and human costs were too high. Mocked for his frequent use of the term “prudence,” Bush was, in fact expressing a Hamiltonian, clear-eyed calculation
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