Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Several recent attacks on Barack Obama from Hillary Clinton and other Democratic rivals for the nomination were designed to give the impression that Obama is too inexperienced to be president. In each case Obama proven his case and impressed many with believing he had the most insight on foreign policy.

The Los Angeles Times has an editorial today supporting Obama’s views on Cuba:

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, determined to cast himself as the Democratic presidential candidate most open to new ideas on foreign policy, raised plenty of eyebrows recently when he proclaimed that he would be willing to meet personally with such rogue figures as Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. But that was nothing compared with the opinion article he published Tuesday in the Miami Herald saying Cuban Americans should have unrestricted rights to travel and send remittances to the island.

The other Democratic front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who portrays herself as the experienced foreign policy realist next to Obama’s cowboy diplomat, wasted no time in rejecting Obama’s proposal. Her campaign released a statement saying the U.S. stance toward Cuba shouldn’t be altered until a post-Castro regime cleans up its act. Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Rudolph W. Giuliani, meanwhile, said Obama’s plan would only strengthen Castro’s oppressive government…

Regardless of the political implications, Obama is clearly right — the only problem is, his proposal doesn’t go far enough. The travel ban should be lifted for everybody, not just Cuban immigrants.

Yesterday I noted that Zbigniew Brzezinski had endorsed Obama, saying Obama “recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the world.”

There was also further evidence published yesterday that Obama was right on foreign policy. Documents obtained by AP showed that Obama’s statement on American troops going into Pakistan under limited conditions is consistent with current U.S. policy:

Newly uncovered “rules of engagement” show the U.S. military gave elite units broad authority more than three years ago to pursue suspected terrorists into Pakistan, with no mention of telling the Pakistanis in advance.

The documents obtained by The Associated Press offer a detailed glimpse at what Army Rangers and other terrorist-hunting units were authorized to do earlier in the war on terror. And interviews with military officials suggest some of those same guidelines have remained in place, such as the right to “hot pursuit” across the border.