George W Bush’s response to unbiddable adversaries was to bomb them; and, if they did not listen, to bomb them again. Barack Obama has decided the US should talk to its enemies; and, if they do not listen, well, it should talk to them again.
Some will find these characterisations unfair. To a degree they would have a point. But only to a degree. If Mr Bush tested to destruction the notion that war-war was the way to set the world to rights, Mr Obama should have learnt that jaw-jaw has its own limitations. Albeit in very different ways, the two leaders have presided over a significant diminution of US power.
It is much easier to side with Mr Obama’s faith in diplomacy. After the bloody havoc wreaked by the likes of Mr Bush’s sidekicks, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the US badly needed a president ready to recognise the realities of a more multipolar world and to give diplomacy a go.