Obama’s Foreign Policy Forum
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:
January 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Check out a great website about the candidates and their action on Darfur at http://www.AskTheCandidates.org
http://www.AskTheCandidates.org