“When will the Bush administration finally get serious about the threat of unsafe drugs, food, and consumer products from China? How many more reminders do we need that our import safety net is badly frayed?”
–Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), in a statement Friday, on reports that 21 people may have died as a result of tainted blood-thinning medication Heparin imported from China.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, warned Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) Thursday that a rapid withdrawal from Iraq would “turn around the gains we have achieved, and struggled to achieve, and turn them around overnight.” Still, Mullen said, “When a new president comes in, I will get my orders and I will carry them out” (ABC).
Aides to the Obama and Clinton campaigns both say they expect tens of thousands of troops to stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) again attacked Obama (NYT) Thursday for his stance on Iraq. McCain said he does not think Obama “displays an understanding of the size of the threat” in Iraq. “This is not about decisions that were made in the past,” McCain said of Obama’s comments Wednesday that al Qaeda would not be in Iraq were it not for the U.S. invasion and occupation.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has responded critically to the Democratic candidates’ recent attacks on NAFTA. Harper said he “highly” doubts (Canadian Press) that the next U.S president will want to renegotiate NAFTA. He also warned that it would be a “mistake” for the U.S. government to open the U.S.-Canadian oil deal for renegotiation.
“Sitting down at the table, having your picture taken with a tyrant such as Raul Castr
o, for example, lends the status of the office and the status of our country to him. He gains a lot from it by saying, ‘Look at me. I’m now recognized by the president of the United States.’”
–President Bush, addressing reporters’ questions about meeting with Cuban leaders without preconditions, a policy advocated by Democratic candidate Barack Obama.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) engaged in a general election-style war of words over Iraq policy. Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) explained the progression of her position on NAFTA. In an interview with PBS’ NewsHour Wednesday, she said NAFTA’s negative impact was “not so obvious in the economy” until the Bush administration took office because “they stopped enforcing trade agreements, they really stopped going to bat to try to keep jobs in this country.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ended speculation that he might run for president as an independent Thursday with an op-ed in the New York Times. Bloomberg also weighed in on some of the hot issues of the campaign, saying the candidates “must know better” than to think the United States can fix the economy “by isolating America from global trade,” or to think the issue of immigration can be resolved “with border security alone.”
Evangelical leader John Hagee endorsed McCain for the Republican nomination Wednesday. At a press conference, Hagee praised McCain for his support of Israel.
“Senator Obama talks about the costs of the war in Iraq — despite our increasing su
ccess — but refuses to address the catastrophic costs that would result from precipitous withdrawal and defeat in Iraq. Surrender and defeat in Iraq will ultimately cost far more in lives and treasure than will continued success and achieving victory with honor.”
–Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), in a statement today responding to Sen. Barack Obama’s comments on Iraq in Tuesday night’s Democratic debate.
“John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, but so far, all he’s done is follow George Bush into a messianic war in Iraq that has cost us thousands of lives and billions of dollars and that I intend to bring to an end.”
–Obama, at a campaign even in Columbus, Ohio, in response to McCain’s attack.
In what has been billed as the most important debate of the campaign so far, the final two Democratic candidates met Tuesday night in Ohio to hash out disagreements on issues like NAFTA, foreign policy expertise, and health care. Countering Sen. Barack Obama’s contention, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said she has “been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning,” but that she did not make her objections to it in public in the 1990s because “I was part of the administration.” Obama rejected Clinton’s claim, saying “it is inaccurate for Senator Clinton to say that she’s always opposed NAFTA. In her campaign for Senate, she said that NAFTA, on balance, had been good for New York and good for America.” Both candidates said they would renegotiate NAFTA to ensure more labor and environmental protections.
Pakistan: Attempting to highlight what she says is a lack of foreign policy experience on Obama’s part, Clinton said Obama “threatened to bomb Pakistan” last summer. That, she said, was not “a particularly wise position to take.” Obama denied the accusation. “I never said I would bomb Pakistan,” he said. Rather, he said, “if we have actionable intelligence against bin Laden or other key al Qaeda officials– and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to strike against them, we should.”
Russia: Obama and Clinton both expressed skepticism about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s likely successor, Dmitri Medvedev. Clinton said Medvedev is “being installed by Putin” and will have “very little independence.” Obama agreed, and criticized President Bush for neglecting U.S.-Russian relations.
Iraq: Though she has declined to apologize for her 2002 vote in favor of the Iraq war, Clinton said she regrets the vote and said if the United States had not been in Iraq in the last several years, it instead could have “talked about the retreat from democracy” in Latin America or the “failure to end the genocide in Darfur.”
In the latest installment of this week’s CFR.org Online Debate, Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, says the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have been “an ideal recruiting poster for al-Qaeda globally,” and that a withdrawal of U.S. troops would “deprive the organization of that rallying cry.” He maintains the recent lull in violence in Iraq has been due in large part to ethnic cleansing and ethnic segregation in Baghdad.
To read more of this week’s Online Debate, When Should the U.S. Withdraw from Iraq?, click here.
Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech in Washington, D.C., on Monday generated discussion again about the foreign policy credentials of Sen. Barack Obama. Less noted was the bleak foreign affairs outlook Clinton painted. She mentioned wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, countries “rushing to acquire nuclear weapons,” and “crushing” global poverty. She also pointed to climate change, disease pandemics, genocide in Darfur, terrorism, and the “rise of borderless, stateless criminal cartels.” Clinton drew distinctions between herself and opponent Barack Obama, and attempted to portray herself as a safe bet for voters concerned about foreign policy. “The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues, or whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis, or whether I’d have to rely on advisers to introduce me to global affairs,” she said.
Pakistan: Apparently criticizing Obama, though not mentioning him by name, Clinton said she would not “broadcast threats of unilateral military action against a country like Pakistan just to demonstrate that I am tough enough for the job.”
Diplomacy: Clinton warned against legitimizing rogue states, and said she would “not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions.”
Africa: Clinton said she would promote a “consistent, coherent strategy in dealing with Africa,” but did not go into much detail. She did say the United States should push “more aggressively” for the deployment of peacekeeping forces to Darfur.
In a speech Monday in Washington, D.C., Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) again drew distinctions between herself and opponent Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), and attempted to portray herself as a safe bet for voters concerned about foreign policy. “The American people don’t have to guess whether I understand the issues, or whether I would need a foreign policy instruction manual to guide me through a crisis, or whether I’d have to rely on advisers to introduce me to global affairs,” she said.
Obama advisers countered that Clinton has shown poor foreign policy judgment (BaltSun), such as her vote to authorize the war against Iraq.
Former Democratic candidate Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) will endorse Obama today, the Hartford Courant reports.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said Monday if he does not successfully convince the public that U.S. policy in Iraq is working, he will lose the general election. He then retracted the statement (AP), but said: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that how they judge Iraq will have a direct relation to their judgment of me, my support of the surge.”
“We’ve seen the tragic results of having a president who didn’t have neither the experience nor the wisdom to manage our foreign policy and safeguard our national security. We can’t let that happen again.”
–Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), in a major foreign policy address Monday at George Washington University.
Copyright 2008 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.
