O’Malley Speaks Against Bush/Obama Regime-Change Policy

While campaigning for Glass-Steagall and against the Wall Street which has filled the ranks of the Obama Administration, potential Presidential candidate Martin O’Malley also took on the policy of regime-change which has dominated the United States foreign policy over the past 16 years, through both the Bush and Obama presidencies. Here is what he said in an interview with Salon on March 13. Emphases are added.

Salon: On the issue of ISIS, and Libya and Syria more broadly…. Where do you stand on those questions, of whether we should have taken out Qaddafi, or whether we should have done more against Assad?

O’Malley: I think our most effective foreign policy is a foreign policy of constant engagement around the world, and deploying our considerable diplomatic power, and our economic power, in accordance with our principles. I think we do our men and women in the military a tremendous disservice when we ignore problems until the only solution left to us is a military solution. I think we may well make the world less safe by a quick resort to toppling regimes without the more painstaking work of building economies.

Salon: So would you question the decision to intervene in Libya, or get more involved in Syria?

O’Malley: I don’t know. I wasn’t there at the time, and I didn’t really bone up on the nuances of that to be able to discuss it with you today. No doubt we will in the fullness of time, if I decide to do this. Let me say that over the course of the next couple of months we’ll be laying out a number of policy speeches, almost certainly on national security and foreign policy. The first role of our president is to make sure the U.S. is safe and secure in this world. But doing that involves the deployment of our full array of powers. It involves the consistent engagement of like-minded people around the world. I don’t think we should take on the unilateral responsibility of declaring when political leaders do or do not have to go in other countries. Yes, we have to stand up to evil and atrocities but we are at our best when we do that in coordination with allies in the region.

It was Obama who said of both Muammar Qaddafi, and then a year later of Bashar Assad, “He has to go.”