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The Education of an Idealist, by Samantha Power (Harper Collins 2019)

In this wise, informative, autobiographical account from recent history, author Samantha Power details her youth in Ireland, her years as an international journalist and her experiences as ambassador to the UN under President Obama.

Some of Power’s early foreign policy assignments were met with criticism in connection with what has been called Obama’s “apology tour,” after Obama himself spoke about past American mistakes. And if the intent of those efforts, whether by Power or Obama, was to grovel at the feet of less powerful nations, then those efforts were surely wrong. That’s not the purpose Obama touted, nor does Power, and predictably, Power speaks largely in positive terms about Obama’s foreign policies, though she disagreed strongly with his tepid handling of the Syrian turmoil. Despite that disagreement, she and her husband remained close friends with Obama.

Judging foreign policy is way over my pay grade, but reading about it did remind me of questions I’ve pondered many times.

First, America claims to be a Christian nation. The spiritual core of Christianity says all have sinned, and forgiveness can only come through acknowledging those sins. Theoretically then, a truly Christian nation would, as a basis of foreign policy, acknowledge its transgressions and seek forgiveness. It seems that Christians, of all people, would understand the morally required repentant underpinnings of such intentions.

Politically, that understanding didn’t happen.

Second, an age-old question asks: by which should we be judged — our intentions, our actions, or results of our actions? Samantha Power faced this question directly when visiting the African nation of Cameroon, where the vicious Islamic group Boko Haram was active. When Power side-tripped to meet actual victims, a vehicle from her UN caravan struck and killed a child from the crowds along a crude roadway. If she had stayed on the prescribed route, it wouldn’t have happened.

Power, herself a mother of two, nearly went to pieces over the incident. Her intentions in seeking first-hand information were admirable, but her actions were impulsive, while the consequences of her actions were embarrassing for the U.S. and tragic for that Cameroon family.

Third, 18th-century political writers dealt with these questions by insisting that the American republic needed to be “virtuous.” They didn’t necessarily mean sinless or wimpy, either in action or policy. They meant that the nation should always seek to do the moral thing first. Being “first among nations” then, would mean first in moral intentions rather than first by material results.

Power’s career started as a political outsider. Later, as an insider, she used her influence aggressively to favor the oppressed over the powerful, a conviction she developed as a young journalist covering genocide in Bosnia. She pushed Obama in the same direction. Thus, it would be hard to fault her moral intentions. Diplomats with her intentions give the U.S. the worldwide respect we need.

It’s easy for citizens to sit safe at home and judge whether any president, ambassador or other foreign policy leader does the “right” thing, since we have no personal influence on policy results, nor for national security, the wild card which trumps any other considerations.

Yet for presidents and private citizens alike, always in the background there lurks that nagging truism that if our intent is that material results come first, then there would be no virtue and nothing unique in being American. We’d be just like everyone else – an unrepentant, amoral, arrogant and arbitrary political body mud wrestling for the best deal.

Samantha Power represented our better side. Her book reads well during the current troubles in diplomatic circles.

Ron Rude, Plains