“Today on the eve of World AIDS Day, I call on the President and my colleagues in Congress to pledge $50 billion over the next five years for our global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs. My father used to say, show me your budget and I’ll tell you what you value.
–Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE), in a statement today.
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) has repeated his pledge to impeach President Bush if he attacks Iran without congressional approval.
In a mailing to South Carolina voters, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) outlined his “six-point plan” (TPM) for immigration reform, which includes ending “birthright citizenship” for children of illegal immigrants.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) yesterday released a statement on the future status of Kosovo. “If the government in Pristina decides for independence, I would strongly support prompt U.S. recognition, and I would urge the European Union to do the same,” she said.
The Economist looks at the candidates’ foreign policy backgrounds. “No plausible contender for the presidency has much foreign-policy experience,” the piece says.
The Republican presidential candidates’ heavy emphasis on immigration spilled out into their latest debate (NYT), featuring questions relayed via YouTube. Foreign policy questions did not make the candidates depart from that familiar theme– they spent the first 20 minutes of the debate answering questions relating to the issue. In fact, the Republicans were not asked about almost any foreign policy topic other than immigration and Iraq last night. Even Iran, a favorite focus of rhetoric in this campaign, was only mentioned once in the entire debate, in passing. Pakistan was not discussed, despite recent upheaval there.
Immigration: Rudy Giuliani responded to allegations that New York under his governance was a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants. He said he allowed children of illegal immigrants to attend school to avoid having “70,000 children on the streets at a time in which New York City was going through a massive crime wave.” He also said he allowed illegal immigrants access to emergency care. Fred Thompson criticized Giuliani’s record on immigration in New York. “In 1996, I helped pass a bill outlawing sanctuary cities. The mayor went to court to overturn it. So, if it wasn’t a sanctuary city, I’d call that a frivolous lawsuit,” he said.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), whose has generally avoided involvement in the constant back and forth over immigration between other leading Republicans, said that rhetoric over immigration “unfortunately contributes nothing to the national dialogue,” but assured voters that under his presidency, “I’ll enforce the borders first, that as president of the United States, we’ll solve this immigration problem. And we won’t demagogue it. And we won’t have sanctuary cities.”
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) pledged to “build the double-border fence, all 854 miles, in six months” as president. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), whose candidacy has centered solely on the issue, said the other candidates were “trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo.”
Mike Huckabee defended a bill he backed as Arkansas governor that would have provided scholarship funds, tied to exemplary behavior, to the children of illegal immigrants. “We’re a better country than to punish children for what their parents did,” he said. Romney attacked Huckabee’s stance: “If you’re here illegally, then you ought to be able to return home or get in line with everybody else. But illegals are not going to get taxpayer-funded breaks that are better than our own citizens.”
Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) was asked about his belief in “this conspiracy theory regarding the Council of Foreign Relations, and some plan to make a North American Union by merging the United States with Canada and Mexico.” Paul called the debate over the North American Union “a contest between ideologies, whether we believe in our institutions here, our national sovereignty, our Constitution, or are we going to further move into the direction of international government, more UN.”
Space: Tancredo said he opposes an increase in spending for space exploration. “We can’t afford some things, and by the way, going to Mars is one of them,” he said.
Iraq: Paul and McCain had a heated exchange when Paul, who is against the war, compared the situation in Iraq to the Vietnam war. McCain responded: “We never lost a battle in Vietnam. It was American public opinion that forced us to lose that conflict.” The Vietnamese “didn’t want to follow us home. They wanted to build their own workers’ paradise,” he said.
Torture: Asked if waterboarding is torture, Romney said “as a presidential candidate, I don’t think it’s wise for us to describe specifically which measures we would and would not use.” McCain responded that he was “astonished” at Romney. “We’re not going to do what Pol Pot did. We’re not going to do what’s being done to Burmese monks as we speak,” he said. “How in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me.”
Invitation: Readers are cordially invited to attend the second in a series of lectures co-produced by CFR.org, the Economist, and New York University’s Stern Business School. The event will take place on December 3, in New York City. See here for more details.
“This is a step forward in the direction of democracy and hopefully will help rev
ive Pakistan’s political progress. However, there are still many steps that must be made. Since emergency rule was declared earlier this month, thousands of political activists have been arrested and a media blackout has ensued. I urge President Musharraf to continue in the direction of democracy, end emergency rule, and holding fair and free elections.”
–Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), on Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s resignation from his military post.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) hosted a foreign policy forum for an audience of New Hampshire voters Tuesday, featuring advisers to his campaign including Richard Danzig, Former secretary of the Navy under President Clinton; Tony Lake, National Security Advisor to President Clinton; Adm. John Hutson (USN Ret.), a New Hampshire resident and the Dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center; Samantha Power, professor at Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy; and Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice.
The panel discussion did not shed much new light on Obama’s world view, but the gathering of foreign policy advisers contributed to the candidate’s broader message on the importance of transparency in foreign policy matters. That the event occurred at all is notable– an assembly like this of any candidates’ foreign policy advisers for public access has been rare so far. Some questioners also raised topics that have been largely neglected in this Iraq-centric campaign, including the role of the United Nations, and policy toward Sudan.
Obama noted “contesting narratives about how we meet the challenges of this rapidly accelerating world” that will predominate in the general election. The Republican narrative, he said, is “based on fear” of immigrants and terrorism. He also reiterated his plan to remove all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months, leaving some forces behind to protect the U.S. embassy and “carry out targeted strikes.”
Globalization: Responding to a question about the “global supply chain,” Obama said he believes “that if a country is participating actively in the world economic order, that they then have a greater stake in maintaining that order, and that means that they are more likely to resolve conflicts diplomatically.” Obama cited an increase in public skepticism about global trade, “because all the benefits have gone to the top one percent.”
United Nations: Obama said the United States should “acknowledge both the strengths and the weaknesses of the United Nations.” He said the UN’s Human Rights Commission has “become a farce,” but said that general, the United Nations’ success “is largely a function of what we put into it and what other powerful countries put into it. If we disempower it, then it’s not going to be particularly effective.”
Power also weighed in on the UN question: “The imbalance between the resort to military might and the need for civilian expertise exists not only in this country but exists within the UN system on the whole,” she said. “For all the criticisms that people make,” Power said, the UN “currently has 130,000 peacekeepers in 17 conflict areas around the world.”
Darfur: Rice commented on the situation in Sudan, and said the United States under Obama “will be actively and seriously engaged diplomatically” both in efforts to keep the peace between the North and South, and in “dealing forcefully and energetically with the challenge in Darfur.” Thus far, Rice said, there has been “a lot of rhetoric, a lot of tough talk out of Washington, but very little action” on Sudan.
Here is video of Obama’s statement at the forum:
John Edwards responded to the White House’s “declaration of principles” for cooperation with Iraq yesterday, calling them “further proof that despite talking about a withdrawal, Bush is planning to pursue a ‘Korea-style’ American occupation of Iraq for 10 years or more.”
Meanwhile, a new Pew survey finds that nearly half of Americans have positive opinions about the situation in Iraq, for the first time in a long time.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said yesterday she would approach statesmen from both parties, including Colin Powell (NYT), to serve as emissaries for the United States. Powell had no comment.Republican candidate Mitt Romney has come under fire after a Christian Science Monitor op-ed recounted his statement at a fundraiser that he would not place a Muslim in a cabinet position in his administration. Romney said the comments were taken out of context.
Invitation: Readers are cordially invited to attend the second in a series of lecture co-produced by CFR.org, the Economist, and New York University’s Stern Business School. The event will take place on December 3, in New York City. See here for more details.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) criticized the Bush administration’s newly released plans to establish a permanent U.S. presence in Iraq yesterday. A statement on Dodd’s website said he is “fearful that the lack of clarity on the long-term presence will be used as a justification by this Administration for a permanent military presence in Iraq, at precisely the time when we should be declaring the opposite.”
Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) responded to claims by Republican candidates that the troop surge in Iraq has worked. Speaking in Iowa yesterday, Biden said: “There is no evidence—none—that the surge is succeeding in achieving its stated objective: to allow Iraqis to come together politically.”
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) called for an investigation into the Department of Homeland Security’s signing of no-bid contracts. “In too many cases, DHS appears to be awarding bonuses without evaluating work or, even worse, despite poor performance,” Clinton wrote.
Republican candidate Mike Huckabee said on CNN’s Late Edition yesterday he would only support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if there was “some guarantee of security and concessions on the part of the nations that would surround Israel.” He also said the United States is “enslaved” to Saudi oil, at the expense of human rights and the war on terror.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), back from a Thanksgiving trip to Iraq (WashPost), cited “accelerated” military and political progress there. “If we’d have withdrawn six months ago, my friend, al-Qaeda would be trumpeting all over the world how they’ve defeated the United States of America,” he said on ABC’s This Week.
On the same show, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson disagreed with McCain’s assertions about Iraq. He again stressed his view that “the best way to achieve a political solution in Iraq is to withdraw our forces.”
A Wall Street Journal op-ed today by the Hoover Institution’s Shelby Steele looks at Sen. Barack Obama’s plan to hold direct talks with Iran. He says such a tactic would grant the United States moral authority: “Either our high-risk diplomacy works or we have the license to fight to win. In the meantime, we give our allies around the world every reason to respect us.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is receiving foreign policy briefings (Huffington Post) from former UN Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, fueling speculation that he may be preparing to run for the Republican nomination.
Bernadette Chirac, wife of former French President Jacques Chirac, announced her support (Reuters) for Sen. Hillary Clinton’s candidacy yesterday.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) criticized President Bush’s policy toward Pakistan. “By giving President Musharraf a blank check, President Bush is alienating the very people in Pakistan who are most likely to share our values, and undercutting his own support for democracy abroad,” Obama said Wednesday.
Republican candidate Mitt Romney defended the troop surge in Iraq Wednesday and criticized Obama’s anti-war stance, saying Iraq would have “safe havens for al Qaeda” (DesMoines Register) if the Illinois Democrat was president.
Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) again attacked Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for what she called a lack of foreign policy experience. The Obama campaign responded (NYT) that the Bush administration “along with Hillary Clinton” have “led us into the worst foreign policy disaster in a generation.” The exchange came after Obama on Monday cited his experience growing up abroad as an influential factor in his foreign policy outlook.
In an interview with Salon yesterday, Obama further discussed his international experience. He also outlined his views on Iran, emphasizing his willingness to talk directly to the Iranian government.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) announced he will spend Thanksgiving in Iraq (New York Daily News). It will be his seventh trip to the country.
Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
