President Barack Obama’s visit to Canada on February 19th provided an opportunity to see what positions the world’s closest allies and trading partners may take on key foreign policy issues. Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s comments appear to indicate that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Below is an annotation of key foreign policy themes touched upon by the two leaders during their post-meeting press conference.
Mexico faces two serious challenges: the deepest economic slowdown in Latin America and an explosion of drug-related violence. To the extent that these crises are getting any attention at all in the United States, the views are widely divergent.
More than 100,000 people gathered on the edge of the Amazon rainforest for the 9th World Social Forum in Belém, Brazil in late January. Youth from local universities mixed with seasoned activists from around the globe. Sheltered from the beating sun and drenching rains by huge white tents, they talked in pairs and in the hundreds, to old friends and new allies. The conversations amounted to nothing less than a full-scale re-imagining of the world order — one rising out of the ashes of today’s economic, ecological, and cultural crises.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his supporters scored a significant victory on February 15, winning a national referendum to amend Venezuela’s constitution and allow the Venezuelan leader to run for re-election in 2012. With almost 95% of the votes counted, the results indicated that approximately 54.4% of Venezuelans approved the measure while only 45.6% voted in opposition. This was Chávez’s second attempt to end term limits. He tried this 15 months ago and failed, and in regional elections in November the opposition made significant gains, leading many to believe Chávez’s proposal might be defeated again in Sunday’s vote. But with just over 67% of eligible voters turning out to cast their ballots, the referendum prevailed. And while the wording of the referendum presented to voters on electronic voting screens across the country never mentioned the word "re-election," the vote did end term limits for all elected officials in Venezuela.
The Obama administration started with a bang in developing its own strategy toward different regions of the world. There are several ingredients in that strategy. The new president has promised a return to multilateralism. It’s searching for common ground with Russia. There are outstanding invitations for negotiations with America’s traditional adversaries like Iran and North Korea. And the administration’s approaches to Palestine, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are likely to be radically different from those the Bush administration pursued unsuccessfully.
I wanted to be a fighter pilot when I was in sixth grade. Fresh off my first viewing of Top Gun, I decided to serve my country by learning to fly an F-14. Fifteen years later, I’m a civilian with no flight experience whatsoever. This is hardly surprising. Childhood dreams don’t always become adulthood realities. What’s truly astonishing is that even if I had joined the military, and even if I were an accomplished pilot today, I might still lack any meaningful flight experience.
Last week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates briefed President Barack Obama on Afghanistan and the Pentagon’s proposal to send 15,000 more troops there by late spring. Obama is expected to accept the plan as a "down payment" on his pledge during the campaign to put more troops into the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban insurgents. These troops are only about half the number requested by the field commanders, and Gates will return with a new request soon.
Team Obama’s debut on the world stage at last weekend’s security conference in Munich was highly anticipated. With his pledge for a "new era of cooperation," Vice President Joe Biden struck the right note for a European audience still haunted by the Bush administration’s "with us or against us" approach. But once the memory of Bush fades, Europeans will realize the price of Barack Obama’s multilateralism. Like the U.S. president, they’ll be forced to define what kind of multilateralism they want and what they’re willing to sacrifice for it. More than any other issue, Afghanistan will produce this moment of truth sooner than might be expected, while determining NATO’s relations with Iran to a greater extent than expected.
Iran is in the middle of celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution that ousted Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and with him, the extraordinary influence the United States had on Iranian life. According to many right-wing pundits, the revolution was the start of an era of hostility between the United States and the Muslim world — an era that they see as still underway.
Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt of the author’s testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on February 4.