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Barack Obama on Foreign PolicyDemocratic Jr Senator (IL) |
CLINTON: I would not meet with him until there was evidence that change was happening.
Q: [to Obama]: Presumably you would be willing to meet?
A: That's correct. Now, keep in mind that the starting point for our policy in Cuba should be the liberty of the Cuban people. And I think we recognize that that liberty has not existed throughout the Castro regime. And we now have an opportunity to potentially change the relationship between the US & Cuba after over half a century. I would meet without preconditions, although Sen. Clinton is right that there has to be preparation. It is very important for us to make sure that there was an agenda [including] human rights, releasing of political prisoners, opening up the press. And that preparation might take some time. But I do think that it's important for the US not just to talk to its friends, but also to talk to its enemies. In fact, that's where diplomacy makes the biggest difference.
A: As a show of good faith that we're interested in pursuing a new relationship, I've called for a loosening of the restrictions on remittances from family members to Cuba, as well as travel restrictions for family members who want to visit their family members in Cuba. And I think that initiating that change in policy as a start could be useful, but I would not normalize relations until we started seeing some progress.
Q: But that's different from your position back in 2003, when you called US policy toward Cuba a miserable failure.
A: I support the eventual normalization. And it's absolutely true that I think our policy has been a failure. During my entire lifetime, Cuba has been isolated, but has not made progress when it comes to the issues of political rights and personal freedoms. So I think that we have to shift policy. I think our goal has to be ultimately normalization. But that's going to happen in steps.
A: The key is to make sure that there's legitimacy to those elections. And given the enormous tragedy that has happened, I think that it is understandable if those elections are delayed slightly. But it's important that this is not used as an excuse to put off, indefinitely, elections. My main concern is making sure that the opposition parties feel comfortable that they have the opportunity to participate in fair and free elections. That also means that we reinstate an independent judiciary in Pakistan, that there is a free press, that the campaigning can proceed. Because our primary interest is making sure that whatever government emerges in Pakistan is viewed as legitimate. The vast majority of the Pakistani people are moderate and believe in rule of law. That's who we want as allies in the fight against Islamic extremism.
A: The first thing we want to do is to contact the Pakistani government to get assurances from them that the nuclear stockpiles are secured. The second thing is to make sure that Musharraf is sending a clear message to the family of Bhutto and her supporters that he recognizes this is a tragedy and express sympathies to try to keep tempers cooled in the capital cities and major urban areas. And the third thing that we have to do is to make sure that elections continue. If they're not going to continue as planned on January 8th, then shortly thereafter, but there has to be a clear message from the Musharraf government that in fact this won't be used as an excuse to subvert democracy.
A: It is illegal and unwise for the President to disregard international human rights treaties that have been ratified by the United States Senate, including and especially the Geneva Conventions. The Commander-in-Chief power does not allow the President to defy those treaties.
A: The Obama Doctrine is not going to be as doctrinaire as the Bush Doctrine because the world is complicated. Bush's ideology has overridden facts and reality. That means that if there are children in the Middle East who cannot read, that is a potential long-term danger to us. If China is polluting, then eventually that is going to reach our shores. We have to work with them cooperatively to solve their problems as well as ours.
A: Number one is we've got to get our own fiscal house in order. Number two, when I was visiting Africa, I was told by a group of businessmen that the presence of China is only exceeded by the absence of America in the entire African continent. Number three, we have to be tougher negotiators with China. They are not enemies, but they are competitors of ours. Right now the United States is still the dominant superpower in the world. But the next president can't be thinking about today; he or she also has to be thinking about 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 50 years from now.
A: I do. Now, I did not say that I would be meeting with all of them. I said I'd be willing to. Obviously, there is a difference between pre-conditions and preparation. Pre-conditions, which was what the question was in that debate, means that we won't meet with people unless they've already agreed to the very things that we expect to be meeting with them about. And obviously, when we say to Iran, "We won't meet with you until you've agreed to all the terms that we've laid out," from their perspective that's not a negotiation, that's not a meeting.
Q: You're not afraid of being used in a propaganda way?
A: You know, strong countries and strong presidents speak with their adversaries. I always think back to JFK's saying that we should never negotiate out of fear, but we shouldn't fear to negotiate.
The key part of the Bush Doctrine is the focus on unilateral action and the use of force to spread democracy around the world. And the worst part of the Bush administration is not the Bush Doctrine but Bush's implementation of it.
As Obama famously declared in 2002, he did not oppose all wars, but he did oppose a "dumb war." Isolationism must not be the reaction to a dumb president and a dumb war.
There is no Obama Doctrine because Obama is not a doctrinaire kind of leader who operates according to fixed policies. Instead, Obama believes in a set of principle (democracy, security, liberty) for the world and tries to come up with practical measures for incrementally increasing US security and global freedom. He rejects isolationism and he tries to steer clear of unilateralism.
He will help developing countries invest in sustainable democracies and demand more accountability in return. Obama will establish a $2 billion Global Education Fund to eliminate the global education deficit. He will reduce the debt of developing nations and better coordinate trade and development policies.
Obama also will reestablish U.S. moral leadership by respecting civil liberties; ending torture; restoring habeas corpus; making the U.S. electoral processes fair and transparent and fighting corruption at home.
CLINTON: A president should not telegraph to our adversaries that you're willing to meet with them without preconditions.
OBAMA: Strong countries and strong presidents meet and talk with our adversaries. We shouldn't be afraid to do so. We've tried the other way. It didn't work.
Q: [to Dodd]: You've called Sen. Obama's views "confusing & confused, dangerous & irresponsible."
DODD: I disagreed with Obama on a hypothetical solution that raised serious issues within Pakistan. I thought it was irresponsible to engage in that kind of a suggestion. That's dangerous.
OBAMA: We should describe for the American people in presidential debates & in the presidency, what our foreign policy is and what we're going to do. We shouldn't have strategic ambiguity with the American people when it comes to describing how we're going to deal with our most serious national security issues.
The 15-day trip to Africa was organized to include visits to 5 countries, but the bulk of the journey was to be spent in South Africa and then Kenya. After Kenya, Obama had planned brief visits to the Congo, Djibouti and the Darfur region of Sudan, site of the bloody conflict that was killing thousands of Sudanese a month and displacing millions more.
But Kenya, the homeland of his father, was the physical and emotional centerpiece of the trip. Kenyans had adopted him as one of their own, and had made him a living folk hero in the East African nation.
Many residents lacked basic services, such as clean running water and plumbing. Sewage and garbage were dumped into the open; dwellings were made of canvas and tin with corrugated roofing; and some children appeared less than fully nourished.
The inhabitants, however, were positively gleeful at Obama's visit. Obama grabbed a bullhorn. "Everybody in Kibera needs the same opportunities to go to school, to start businesses, to have enough to eat, to have decent clothes," he told the residents, who madly cheered his words. "I wants to make sure everybody in America knows Kibera.
DODD: Words mean things. When you raise issues about Pakistan, understand that while General Musharraf is no Thomas Jefferson, but he may be the only thing that stands between us and having an Islamic fundamentalist state in that country.
OBAMA: I find it amusing that those who helped to authorize & engineer the biggest foreign policy disaster in our generation are now criticizing me for making sure that we are on the right battlefield and not the wrong battlefield in the war against terrorism. Sen. Dodd obviously didn't read my speech. Because what I said was that we have to refocus, get out of Iraq, make certain that we are helping Pakistan deal with the problem of al Qaeda in the hills between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A: China is a competitor, but they don't have an enemy, as long as we understand that they are going to be negotiating aggressively for their advantage, and we've got to make sure that we're looking after American workers. That means enforcing our trade agreements; it means that if they're manipulating their currency, that we take them to the mat on the that issue; it means that we are also not running up deficits and asking China to bail us out.
OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this: the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them--which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration--is ridiculous. Ronald Reagan constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when he called them an evil empire. He understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward. And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them.
CLINTON: I will not promise to meet with the leaders of these countries during my first year. I don't want to be used for propaganda purposes. I don't want to make a situation even worse. But I certainly agree that we need to get back to diplomacy.
RICHARDSON: What I would like to do is, one, a no-fly zone. Get economic sanctions backed by the Europeans; we should use the levers on China. We need to find ways to stop the massive rapes.
OBAMA: The no-fly zone is important. Having the protective force is critical. But we have to look at Africa not just after a crisis happens; what are we doing with respect to trade opportunities with Africa? What are we doing in terms of investment in Africa? What are we doing to pay attention to Africa consistently with respect to our foreign policy? That has been what's missing in the White House. Our long-term security is going to depend on whether we're giving children in Sudan and Zimbabwe and in Kenya the same opportunities so that they have a stake in order as opposed to violence and chaos.
A: The European Union as a whole has been a long-standing ally of ours, and through NATO we've been able to make some significant progress. We also have to look east, because increasingly, the center of gravity in this world is shifting to Asia. Japan has been an outstanding ally of ours for many years. But, obviously, China is rising and it's not going away. They're neither our enemy nor our friend. They're competitors.
A: Well, keep in mind what the remark actually, if you had the whole thing, said. And what I said is nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognize Israel, to renounce violence, and to get serious about negotiating peace and security for the region. Israel is the linchpin of much of our efforts in the Middle East.
At a rally, Obama rose to speak in public for the first time: "There is a struggle going on. It is happening an ocean away. But it is a struggle that touches each and every one of us... a struggle that demands we choose sides. Not between black & white. Not between rich & poor. No, it is a choice between dignity & servitude. Between fairness & injustice. Between commitment & indifference. A choice between right & wrong."
By prearrangement, he was dragged off by students dressed as soldiers to dramatize the lack of rights in South Africa. He did not want to give up the microphone. The audience was "clapping and cheering, and I knew that I had them, that the connection had been made. I really wanted to stay up there, to hear my voice bouncing off the crowd and returning back to me in applause. I had so much left to say.
Like many nations across this continent, where Kenya is failing is in its ability to create a government that is transparent and accountable One that serves its people and is free from corruption. The reason I speak of the freedom you fought so hard to win is because today that freedom is in jeopardy. It is being threatened by corruption.
Corruption is not a new problem. It's not just a Kenyan problem, or an African problem. It's a human problem, and it has existed in some form in almost every society. My own city of Chicago has been the home of some of the most corrupt local politics in American history. But while corruption is a problem we all share, here in Kenya it is a crisis that's robbing an honest people of opportunities.
Pro: Obama will be uniquely positioned to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict.
A liberal Democrat who is not
trusted by Israeli experts is exactly what the US and the world needs. Only by treating Palestinian rights with dignity can the Middle East problem be resolved.
Con: President Obama will be widely detested in the Muslim world.
If Obama comes to power, it will be on the basis of blending authentic Christian religiosity with an inspiring message of tolerance and diversity. Unfortunately, this message runs exactly opposite to the core values of fundamentalist Islam.
Pro: He is a mensch. Here on a few things he did on his summer vacation:
Con: Who cares? It is Africa. If we are going to go with a President from a non-European background, let's go with one whose relatives are from a country whose friendship will help us, like China or India.
Pro: Kenyans love him.
Con: Who cares? It's Kenya.
We still have the chance to correct recent missteps that have put our principles and legacy in question. Indeed, it is imperative to our nation's standing and security to do so. It will take a change of attitude and direction in our national leadership to restore the values and judgment that made and kept our nation the world's beacon of hope and freedom.
It is our commonality of interests in the world that can ultimately restore our influence and win back the hearts and minds necessary to defeat terrorism and project American values around the globe. Human aspirations are universal-for dignity, for freedom, for the opportunity to improve the lives of our families.
Let us recognize what unites us across borders and build on the strength of this blessed country. Let us embrace our history and our legacy. Let us not only define our values in words and carry them out in deeds.
OFFICIAL CONGRESSIONAL SUMMARY:
SPONSOR'S INTRODUCTORY REMARKS: Sen. OBAMA: There is a country embroiled in conflict that has not yet received the high-level attention or resources it needs. It's the Democratic Republic of Congo, and right now it is in the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe.
31,000 people are dying in the Congo each month and 3.8 million people have died in the previous 6 years. The country, which is the size of Western Europe, lies at the geographic heart of Africa and borders every major region across the continent. If left untended, Congo's tragedy will continue to infect Africa.
I believe that the United States can make a profound difference in this crisis. According to international aid agencies, there are innumerable cost-effective interventions that could be quickly undertaken--such as the provision of basic medical care, immunization and clean water--that could save thousands of lives. On the political front, sustained U.S. leadership could fill a perilous vacuum.
EXCERPTS OF BILL:
LEGISLATIVE OUTCOME:Became Public Law No. 109-456
