The big question for foreign policy is whether Legacy Obama will be a bolder advocate for peace than the disappointing Campaign Obama. The president will need to recast a foreign policy that has been weak or downright contradictory in standing up for the principles he himself has espoused.
“When I saw the rockets being fired at Mario’s house, I swore to myself that the Americans would pay dearly for what they are doing. When this war is over a much wider and bigger war will begin for me: The war that I am going to wage against them. I know that this is my real destiny.” Fidel Castro wrote these words in 1958, the decisive year of his guerrilla war against Dictator Fulgencio Batista.
A team of experts recommend ways to rebalance our national security budget.
Almost 18 months after the onset of popular democratic protests, the Syrian revolution increasingly resembles a bloody marathon with no clear finish line on the horizon. But as Syrian society slowly disintegrates, non-aligned states from the developing world may show the way forward to a diplomatic resolution.
Diplomats are currently scrambling to find a solution to the problem that is Syria. The country is already in a civil war. The dictator Bashar al-Assad doesn’t look like he’s packing his bags any time soon, though plenty of pundits are quick to label him a “dead dictator walking.” Russia and China are reluctant to support measures that would precipitate regime change. Talk about a diplomatic nightmare.
Post-World War II U.S. administrations often marginalized diplomats’ reports that dissented from their policies on the Cold War, China, and the Vietnam and Iraq Wars.
Even though the last WikiLeaks document dump revealed the details of war crimes, the next one, which just leaks diplomats’ communiqués, may have a deeper impact.
Following three decades of mutually hostile postures characterized by minimal communication and limited and sporadic cooperation, the United States and Iran may be about to reengage more constructively.
Such a development, while important for us, would be of even greater significance for the greater Middle East and beyond. Its impact on a variety of relationships, including that between the United States and Israel, and those between Israel and its neighbors, would be transformative and positive. But much must happen by way of careful and persistent diplomacy to get the various moving parts in place. As Washington proceeds to restructure what is probably the key relationship in the region — namely, that between itself and Iran — it would do well to consider how another country has approached its own relations with Iran, in good times and bad. That country is Russia.
In their first debate, Barack Obama and John McCain will audition for the role of change agent. Here’s one thing the moderator needs to ask: how they would change the military-led foreign policy of the past eight years.
At a time when national consensus on anything is rare indeed, here’s one example: The balance between our spending on military forces and other security tools – like diplomacy, nonproliferation, foreign aid and homeland security – needs to change.