Posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 by Joanna Klonsky
At her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton said the United States should “pursue a strategy of smart power in the Middle East,” and should not “give up on peace” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In her opening statement Tuesday, Clinton:
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Emphasized the U.S. commitment to nuclear nonproliferation. She said the United States would work with Russia to forge agreements for more reductions in nuclear weapons, and to take both country’s missiles off hair-trigger alert. She also pledged to work with the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and to restart negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty.
- Stressed a commitment to human rights, especially for women and children. “We still have a long way to go and the United States must remain an unambiguous and unequivocal voice in support of women’s rights in every country, every region, on every continent,” Clinton said.
- Said the United States would press Iran and Syria to become “constructive” actors in their region. With regard to Iran, Clinton asserted, “we are not taking any option off the table at all.”
Posted in Iran, Palestinian-Israeli, Russia, Transition | 0 Comments »
Posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 by campaign2008
A task force led by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former defense secretary William Cohen released a report (WashPost) Monday urging President-elect Barack Obama to create a high-level forum to guide U.S. government policy on the threat of genocide.
IRAN: The Leader of Israel’s opposition Likud party, Benjamin Netanyahu, praised Obama on Monday for his stance on U.S.-Iran policy. “I was impressed by his commitment to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold…I have no doubtthat that commitment is genuine and that he will follow through with it,” Netanyahu told Reuters.
Posted in Iran, Morning Update, Transition | 0 Comments »
Posted on Monday, December 8th, 2008 by Joanna Klonsky
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi said Monday that President-elect Barack Obama’s plan to pressure Iran on its nuclear program and other issues will not work. “The carrot-and-stick policy has no benefit,” Qashqavi said at a press briefing. “It is unacceptable and failed.” (AP)
Qashqavi’s comments come after Obama discussed his ideas about U.S. policy toward Iran in an interview Sunday on NBC News’ Meet the Press. Obama said he would “ratchet up tough but direct diplomacy” with Iran, providing economic incentives if the country pledges to halt its nuclear program and cut off funding for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
Experts from CFR and the Brookings Institution weigh in on this question in a new book, Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President. CFR Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies Ray Takeyh and Brookings Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy Suzanne Maloney call in one chapter of that report for a sweeping new U.S. policy toward Iran. “The new administration may be tempted to take the easy way out by offering merely new rhetoric and modest refinements to the carrot-and-stick approach that has failed its five predecessors,” they write. “This would be a mistake.”
Specifically, Takeyh and Maloney recommend “multitrack, delinked” negotiations with Iran on the nuclear issue, regional security, and the restoration of diplomatic ties between the two countries. They also say the Obama administration should appoint a special coordinator for Iran policy in the State Department.
To read Takeyh and Maloney’s other ideas for U.S.-Iran policy, click here.
For more on Obama’s plans for Iran, see this CFR.org Issue Tracker on the topic.
Posted in Iran, Transition | 0 Comments »
Posted on Friday, November 7th, 2008 by campaign2008
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his first public statement on the U.S. elections, offering President-elect Barack Obama congratulations on his victory and calling on Obama to implement a foreign policy of “non-interference.” The BBC says Ahmadinejad’s gesture is the first official message of goodwill to an American leader from an Iranian president since the country’s Islamist revolution in 1979.
DHS: In a statement Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff outlined the Department of Homeland Security’s plans for the Obama administration’s transition. In the coming months, Chertoff said, DHS will “include the transition team in the ongoing series of tabletop exercises that we have been running for some time, to educate the new administration on incident response procedures.”
EU: Der Spiegel asks which European Union country will elect one of its own ethnic minorities.
Posted in Europe, Homeland Security, Iran, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
Posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 by Joanna Klonsky
Among the most daunting policy challenges for the Obama administration is the Middle East. In the latest CFR Forum, Middle East experts blog on what the United States should–and shouldn’t–do in the region. Here’s a summary of what the experts are saying so far:
- Aaron David Miller, Public Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, says a deal resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “simply not feasible now,” and says the United States should instead focus on negotiating an Israeli-Syrian agreement.
- American Enterprise Institute Resident Scholar Michael Rubin advises the new administration to let the possible establishment by the President Bush of a U.S. Interest Section in Tehran “drop.” He says the initiative is “ill-thought and poorly-timed.”
- Rachel Bronson, vice president of Programs and Studies at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, urges Obama to quickly name a senior representative to go to the Middle East. “It will set back U.S. interests dramatically if he waits to put his cabinet in place, put a senior staff in place, think about a representative and only then, months or a year later establish a presence,” she writes.
Check in here for more expert updates to this CFR Forum.
Posted in Iran, Palestinian-Israeli, Transition | 0 Comments »
Posted on Thursday, October 30th, 2008 by campaign2008
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) told a Florida crowd that national security dangers lurk and should not be ignored amid the financial crisis. He mentioned as one potential crisis “the success of the Iranian regime in its program of acquiring nuclear weapons,” which he said could threaten Israel or spark “an uncontrollable nuclear arms race across the region.”
Separately, McCain said Wednesday he would increase revenue from offshore drilling (AP) for Florida and other coastal states.
Posted in Energy Policy, General Election, Iran, Morning Update, Palestinian-Israeli | 0 Comments »
Posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 by campaign2008
In their second debate, U.S. presidential candidates Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) sparred over the limping U.S. economy and energy policy; both tied the country’s recovery to the latter. Obama faulted McCain for a record of deregulation that he said has contributed to the current crisis; McCain, for his part, presented a new economic proposal under which the U.S. Treasury would buy up problem mortgages, in effect refinancing them (NYT) at prices homeowners can afford. The Wall Street Journal cites McCain’s campaign as saying the plan would cost roughly $300 billion. Opinion surveys have shown respondents more confident in Obama’s ability to handle an economic crisis.
Here are some foreign policy highlights from the debate:
ENERGY: Both candidates stressed the need for energy independence, with Obama citing it as a national security concern (WashPost). Obama also said developing new sources of energy would serve as a major boost for the U.S. economy, creating jobs the way the technology boom did in the 1990s. McCain said he would increase use of nuclear power, which he said is a clean and safe source of energy. “I know that we can reprocess the spent nuclear fuel,” McCain said. “The Japanese, the British, the French do it.” Obama said he also favors nuclear power “as one component of our overall energy mix.”
DEFENSE: McCain touted his opposition to invading Lebanon and his support for U.S. military efforts in Kosovo and Bosnia as evidence that he has strong judgment in deciding when the United States should get involved militarily in a crisis. “[T]he challenge is to know when the United States of American can beneficially effect the outcome of a crisis, when to go in and when not, when American military power is worth the expenditure of our most precious treasure,” he said.
Obama noted Iraq’s “enormous strain” on the U.S. budget. “We’re spending $10 billion a month in Iraq at a time when the Iraqis have a $79 billion surplus,” he said. “[W]e need that $10 billion a month here in the United States.”
IRAN: Both candidates again said they would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. “If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, all the other countries [in the Middle East] will acquire them, too,” McCain warned.
Obama said he would “never take military options off the table” with regard to Iran and said it is “important that we don’t provide veto power to the United Nations or anyone else in acting in our interests.”
Posted in Economy, Energy Policy, General Election, Iran, Iraq, Military, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
Posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 by campaign2008
Seeking to clarify a comment in the vice presidential debate, the McCain campaign has confirmed it opposes providing Iran access to nuclear energy (WashPost). “There is no circumstance under which the international community could be confident that uranium enrichment or plutonium production activities undertaken by the current government of Iran are purely for peaceful purposes,” McCain campaign foreign policy director Randy Scheunemann said. Current Bush administration policy is that Iran has a right to nuclear energy but not control over the process of producing fuel, because it could be diverted for nuclear weapons material.
IRAQ: In separate interviews with the New York Times published Monday, McCain and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) discuss their plans for U.S. involvement in Iraq. Obama’s interview is here, McCain’s is here.
ENVIRONMENT: Popular Mechanics looks at the candidates’ positions on the Law of the Sea treaty and other issues influencing the environment.
Posted in General Election, Iran, Iraq, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
Posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 by campaign2008
U.S. Vice Presidential candidates Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) and Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) sparred on U.S. military deployments in Iraq and several other foreign policy issues in their only television debate before November’s election. On the financial crisis, Biden reaffirmed statements from Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) that any federal government package created to deal with the turmoil should be focused on the middle class (FT). Palin attacked “predatory” lending practices on Wall Street and said Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) past positions cast him as an economic reformer.
On Iraq, Palin criticized setting a timetable for a major troop drawdown, which is favored by Obama and Biden, saying “it would be a travesty if we were to quit now in Iraq.” Biden reaffirmed Obama’s plan to shift troops from Iraq to Afghanistan and said the United States is wasting money in Iraq that could be spent more effectively fighting extremism in Afghanistan.
Here is a run-down of some of the candidates’ statements on other foreign policy issues:
Climate change: Neither candidate disputed climate change is occurring. Palin indicated it was caused both by human activity and by “cyclical temperature changes on our planet.” Biden asserted that climate change is manmade.
Darfur: Both candidates expressed support for a no-fly zone over Darfur. Biden said the United States should provide helicopters to get 21,000 African Union forces into Darfur. Palin cited her support for pending legislation that would divest the Alaska Permanent Fund from Darfur.
Iran: Palin said the U.S. president should not meet without preconditions with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Biden stressed the importance of going “the extra mile on diplomacy” with Iran to resolve the crisis over its nuclear program.
This candidate bio outlines Biden’s statements on foreign policy topics. This one profiles Palin’s.
Posted in Afghanistan, Africa, General Election, Iran, Iraq, Morning Update | 0 Comments »
Posted on Monday, September 29th, 2008 by campaign2008
Both presidential candidates said Sunday they will likely support the proposed $700 billion federal financial bailout deal. On Face the Nation Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) repeated his call (PDF) to “update our 20th century regulatory framework for a 21st century global financial system.”
Asked on ABC’s This Week whether the proposal satisfied his principles, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) replied, “Yes, protect the taxpayer, make sure that there isn’t excessive compensation for CEOs, a oversight body, not leaving all the decisions in the hands of one individual.”
DEBATE: The New York Times pointed out a “role reversal” among the presidential candidates policy toward Pakistan in Friday’s debate.
The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder examines the candidates’ argument about negotiating with Iran.
Posted in Economy, General Election, Iran, Morning Update, Pakistan | 0 Comments »
