Obama Steps Up

SAN DIEGO -- There is nothing wrong with having a president who likes to debate. But things get awkward when he debates himself.

We really don't want a commander in chief who takes positions that he would have vigorously argued against a few months earlier. Take, for instance, the question of when and whether the United States should use military force abroad.

Still, in the arena of foreign policy, President Obama 2.0 is much better than the original model. There appear to be significant improvements that show greater maturity about the unique responsibility borne by Americans in a world that is getting more dangerous.

Listen to what Obama told Steve Kroft of CBS' "60 Minutes" during a recent interview. Kroft had asked the president about the perception that the United States is actually leading the air assault against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria

"That's always the case," Obama said. "America leads. We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity no one else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don't call Beijing. They don't call Moscow. They call us. That's the deal."

Kroft persisted in his line of questioning. He suggested that the United States is conducting "90 percent" of the attacks and claimed that it has in essence become "the Iraqi air force."

Unfazed, Obama stayed on message and gave the interviewer a reality check.

"Steve, there is not an issue," he said. "When there's a typhoon in the Philippines, take a look at who's helping the Philippines deal with that situation. When there's an earthquake in Haiti, take a look at who's leading the charge making sure Haiti can rebuild. That's how we roll. And that's what makes us America."

Take that, Rand Paul. Isolationism may be popular with some Americans, but it belongs on the scrap heap of history. Sitting on the sidelines is not an option -- especially for the one country that the desperate and the downtrodden always look to for salvation. If you think the world is a mess now, just imagine how much worse it would be if the United States didn't exist.

Nevertheless, it is a bit shocking to hear Obama talk this way. It's not fair to call him an isolationist, but at times he has sounded like an anti-interventionist content to let countries work out their problems without interference from the United States. See: Egypt, Iran, Syria, Venezuela. Never mind that this approach often leaves the vulnerable at the mercy of the tyrannical -- something that runs contrary to some of our greatest traditions.

I hope Obama 2.0 sticks around for a while. You can't be too sure with this president.

During the 2008 campaign, the U.S. senator from Illinois portrayed himself as the coolheaded and cautious statesman who promised to end the war in Iraq by withdrawing U.S. troops. And while he pledged to send additional troops to Afghanistan to fight what he considered a more just war, Obama has never seemed comfortable with the idea of using military force to meet U.S. global objectives. The one exception was his reliance on Navy SEALs and other members of the special forces to surgically carry out operations such as neutralizing Somali pirates or killing Osama bin Laden.

Like other presidents before him, Obama seems terrified of the possibility of being stuck in a quagmire. What he is most reluctant to do is commit large numbers of ground troops to fight a sustained war in a foreign land so that they resemble -- as he told Kroft -- "occupying armies." This is why he likes to use the SEALs. They jump into a hot spot, complete the mission, and then jump out. When the world calls, this seems to be as far as Obama is willing to go in terms of answering.

If the Islamic State can't be bombed into submission -- and most military experts are skeptical -- the president might have to rethink his worldview once again and do what he now promises he won't do: commit ground troops.

Obama 3.0 could be out soon.

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Ruben Navarrette's email address is ruben@rubennavarrette.com.