I’m tempted to reply “I don’t do nuance”, but then, that’s your point, isn’t it? Compared to his predecessor, Obama does do nuance. In thinking about your response, it might be best to differentiate security policy from diplomacy (although they are clearly linked). To paraphrase Max Weber, diplomacy is a strong and slow boring of hard boards. As you well know, it takes time to reorient a nation’s diplomatic orientation, and the work involved is difficult, tedious and under appreciated by most. The steps that Hillary has taken, under Obama’s direction, to shift U.S. policy toward what you describe as the central issues of the 21st are important ones, although like much diplomacy, we may not see the fruits of her labors for some time yet.

Where I think we disagree is whether the war on terror (no longer called that, of course!) is increasingly passé. Certainly we have made tremendous progress, and are more secure today than we were a decade ago. But that is in large part because Obama has carried out many of the security policies initiated by Bush – often more successfully. In embracing Bush’s policies, he has in some instances – witness his decision to hold enemy combatants without charge – repudiated his campaign platform. And that’s my point – once in office, security concerns take on an urgency that factors into everything a president does in a way that often seems inconceivable when one is on the campaign trail.

Of course, it is premature to render a full judgment on Obama’s foreign policy – diplomatic or security. Right now I think it is the strongest part of his resume, but history will be judge based in part on those fruits. I confess that I am less sanguine than you regarding Obama’s ability to lessen our commitment to the Mideast. Events have a way of forcing a president’s hand – witness candidate Bush’s promise not to engage in costly nation building! It is not clear to me that the Arab spring is an unalloyed blessing and, in addition to Iran and nuclear weapons, we have the Syria issue and those pesky “invented” people to deal with. We may turn to the Pacific, but these other problems won’t go away.

All the stuff about the war on terror is increasingly passé but had to be carried on, for security as well as domestic political reasons, till the back of Al Quaeda had been broken. Obama’s interview yesterday on 60 minutes suggests it pretty much has been, allowing him new freedom of movement, if – and that’s a very big if – the US can avoid a war with Iran, whose consequences would be calamitous.

I would say that getting us out of Bush’s costly over-commitment in the Middle East, in spite of domestic counter- pressures, and gradually redirecting US focus to the Pacific in his first term will in time be seen as a good deal more than a mere continuation of Bush’s overreactive and costly foreign policy!