The Palin Doctrine?

I really appreciated Governor Palin's statement on Israel this morning. She has shown unabashed support for Israel both during her governorship and now. She criticized the Obama administration's handling of Israel and of Israel's battle with Palestine over West Bank settlements. Despite her criticism, she was actually surprisingly generous to Vice President Biden, as he had been critical of Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visited Israel last week and even showed up an hour and a half late to a meeting with the Prime Minister.

The part of her statement that impacted me the most was the first paragraph:

The Obama Administration reaches out to some of the world’s worst regimes in the name of their engagement policy. America and our allies watch as sanctions are eased on Cuba. Letters are written to Iran’s mullahs only to see that regime start killing protestors in the streets of Tehran. Envoys are sent to North Korea as they continue to defy the world’s demand to give up their nuclear weapons. The Burmese military junta’s representative is allowed to travel to our nation’s capital. The President’s envoy for Sudan talks about giving that genocidal regime “gold stars,” while the President shakes hands with Venezuela’s tyrannical leader. In the midst of all this embracing of enemies, where does the Obama Administration choose to escalate a minor incident into a major diplomatic confrontation? With Iran, Cuba, Sudan, North Korea or Burma? No. With our treasured ally, Israel.

In addition to calling out the President on his lack of support for our ally Israel, she also points out his mishandling of our enemies. To me, the Governor made a very Thatcheresque statement. Her statement is a detailed permeation of Thatcher's words, "I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air". There are stark contrasts between President Obama and Governor Palin. President Obama apologizes for America abroad, bows to foreign leaders (and sometimes Floridian mayors), and chastises our allies. Governor Palin, on the other hand, wants America to stand with her allies and to not appease to our enemies. Additionally, as she described in Going Rogue, she didn't even shake the hand of a Hollywood producer who supported Hugo Chavez and referred to President Bush as the devil.

President Monroe had his Monroe Doctrine suggesting that America should not get involved in affairs outside of our hemisphere and visa versa. President Bush had his nebulous Bush Doctrine. One potential description could be described as America aiming to remove regimes that may pose a threat to America.

The Obama Doctrine could be verbalized as be a citizen of the world, appease your enemies, and lecture your allies. Based upon this statement today, the Palin Doctrine very well could be simply stand with your allies and don't sit with your enemies. That sounds like common sense to me.