Sabina Noel
Ziva Flamhaf
PSCI 104
Midterm Paper
While Obama’s perspec!ve on world poli!cs is an ongoing controversy, I believe him
to be a realist. Realism and na!onalism are two concepts extremely familiar to Obama.
Realism has to do with taking a situa!on as is and accordingly solving any rela!ve issues.
Na!onalism is the concept of having a certain fondness for one’s home na!on-state and
believing that their na!on-state is of utmost importance. Judging The Atlan!c’s ar!cle, these
two concepts are put into play when observing Obama and his handling on interna!onal
issues.
From the beginning of the ar!cle, it is clear that Goldberg labels Obama as a realist
as well. I think Goldberg goes to extremes in his thinking, but I do not completely disagree.
His claim that Obama was obligated to praise Bill Clinton’s foreign policy to balance the
praise he gave Bush seems a bit far fetched. Thucydides came up with the idea of realism in
the early 400’s BC. His de3ni!on was that interna!onal poli!cs is driven by an endless
struggle for power, with its roots in human nature. I believe this to be true; Realism has
been the dominant theory of world poli!cs, and is centered around being straigh5orward
and accep!ng of the situa!on and solving the ma6er accordingly. I think Obama agrees with
this perspec!ve and makes it a reality. He observed what happened when the second Bush
was in his presidency, and saw how involved we became with the Middle East, and knew
that he did not want to end up the same way. That is realism in effect. In a less serious
manner, Goldberg highlights Obama’s mantra as “Don’t do stupid shit.” While this may be
inappropriate to parallel to the concept of realism, it is true in a way. Realism requires one
to observe and accept their surroundings and what they currently have and dealing with
and solving afer. I believe Obama definitely slacked on his du!es when it came to Syria. I
think there should have been a signiticant amount of ac!on taken. While the threats to the
U.S. were very real, at the same !me, thousands of innocent lives were unnecessarily taken
in Syria. Obama’s views on cri!cal issues relay how much of a realist he truly is. Rather than
pu>ng most of his worry into ISIS, he claims that problems such as climate change are more
of an issue. While Obama claims to be an idealist, in preaching for humans rights and norms
