University Times

The war in Iraq. Genocide in Sudan. The nuclear threat from Iran. Putin’s power grab. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict. The role of the United Nations. America’s image in the world. Terrorism. Massive intelligence failures. Failures of the Fourth Estate. Containment vs. pre-emption. Bush vs. Kerry.

You name it, it was mentioned in a lively, occasionally blistering, 90-minute panel discussion/town hall meeting held in Oakland during International Week.

“American Power and Global Security,” part of The People Speak Initiative, a discussion series on foreign policy issues sponsored by a non-partisan coalition of national organizations, drew some 250 interested parties to Soldiers & Sailors ballroom Sept. 22.

The foreign policy discussion, one of two dozen town-hall meetings during September and October, featured panelists Kenneth Bacon, president of Refugees International and former assistant secretary of defense for public affairs and Pentagon spokesperson under President Clinton; Christina Michelmore, chair of the history department at Chatham College and Middle East scholar; former U.S. ambassador Dan Simpson, associate editor, foreign affairs, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Richard Thornburgh, counsel for Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP and former U.S. Attorney General and former governor of Pennsylvania.

Jonathan Karl, ABC News senior foreign affairs correspondent, moderated the free-flowing event and Schuyler Foerster, president of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh and adjunct professor at Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, was the event’s host.

Karl led off by asking the panelists for the differences between John Kerry’s plans for Iraq and George Bush’s current waging of the war there.

Thornburgh said there was no difference, that Kerry only has said he can do a better job in Iraq.

Michelmore said it was unfair to demand of Kerry a specific plan for Iraq when the same demand is not being made of President Bush. She suggested that Bush’s policies were grounded in the false assumption “that we are in control; we are not in control there,” she said.

Bacon said that Kerry has stressed international collaboration and United Nations backing, as opposed to unilateral action in Iraq. Bacon faulted the president for lacking specific goals and an exit strategy. “What does Bush mean, when he says “seeing it through”? Does that mean waiting for democracy? Does it mean staying for decades to stabilize Iraq?”

Simpson also decried the lack of a timetable for U.S. withdrawal. “Bush is saying if America leaves, there will be chaos. People say, ‘So what? There already is chaos.’ I see no consequences to us withdrawing.”

Bush also has alienated traditional American allies, Simpson said. “I don’t think Europeans, for example, hate Americans; they hate the Bush administration. Now, anything we do, the whole world is against us. At least Kerry would have a fresh start” in mending fences, he said.

According to Michelmore, the presidential campaign has focused on Iraq as the foreign policy issue, when the greater issue, she said, is the Bush doctrine of pre-emption, that is, unilaterally invading countries that the United States deems as its enemies. “When the Bush doctrine was first floated, one reaction to it was that it set a precedent for other [countries] to do the same thing.”

A second problem with the Bush doctrine, according to Simpson, is the pressure it puts on the U.S. military acting alone. “Let’s have some ‘fun’ and ask: With 130,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 22,000 in Afghanistan, what if China grabbed Taiwan right now? Haven’t we bit off more than we can chew in Iraq?”

Thornburgh countered that the current administration was forced to take action in Iraq because the U.N. Security Council had lost the will and the capability to enforce its own resolutions regarding Saddam Hussein. “After 12 years, patience wears out. Should we be looking to the U.N. for redress? I’m not so sure. It’s regrettable, because that’s the purpose of the U.N.,” Thornburgh said. “The U.S., Great Britain and others felt they had the right to enforce those resolutions.”

Bacon agreed that Hussein had “stiffed the U.N. for 12 years. But the U.S. policy of containment [had] worked better than we realized. Our goal in Iraq was stability, not democratization. This is new,” Bacon said. Prior to the Iraq invasion, the United States sought to protect its oil interests in the Middle East and to contain challenges to Israel’s security, while now those goals appear to have changed to a policy of imposing American-style governments.

But Thornburgh disagreed. “Containment is a relic of the Cold War. Our policy [in Iraq] since Clinton has been regime change. Pre-emption has to be an option.”

Karl prompted the panelists to answer Kerry’s charge that “In Iraq, we’ve traded the stability of a dictator for chaos. Are we less secure?”

Bacon: “Undeniably, yes.”

Simpson: “Yes. We’re stretched too thin and more people hate us.” Michelmore: “Yes.”

Thornburgh: “Kerry chastised [Howard] Dean for saying we’re not safer with Hussein gone. Kerry is all over the lot on a variety of positions.”

Accused by an audience member of avoiding the question, Thornburgh was pressed into saying he believed Americans were more secure as the result of Hussein’s toppling and that the quality of life eventually will be better for Iraqis. The panel’s train of thought chugged over to Iran, which panelists agreed was potentially a greater threat to U.S. security than pre-war Iraq.

“In many ways, Iran is a more difficult situation,” Bacon said. “We have no good leverage there. How do we stop Iran from using terrorism as an active policy and from developing nuclear weapons?”

On the bright side, the Iranian people, as opposed to the government, generally are not anti-Western and do not hate Americans, Michelmore said. She advocated giving containment a chance to work there.

Simpson suggested expanding diplomatic relations with Iran, starting with the re-opening of the U.S. embassy. “We’ve had no embassy there since 1979. Now, I know why we closed our embassy then. But in 25 years, Iran hasn’t changed? There’s no reason for dialogue? We shouldn’t negotiate with the Iranians?” he asked rhetorically.

Moderator Karl asked the panelists what America should do about the genocide in Sudan.

Bacon was encouraged that President Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell and the U.S. Congress all had categorized the crisis in Sudan as genocide, “which intensifies the pressure on the United Nations to act. On the other hand, to [halt the genocide] requires sending in troops, and the U.S. can’t do it because we’re too nailed down in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Bacon said. “Foreign policy is guided by self-interest, which means sometimes we will accept a grimy dictator. So far, we decided we didn’t have enough national interest in Sudan to stop the genocide.”

Simpson said that America’s foreign policy priorities did not include this issue. “It’s Africa: It’s black people, not white. I’d like to think that’s not [the true reason]. But the U.S. really doesn’t have much national interest in Africa. On the list of our priorities, it’s Europe first; Asia next; Latin America or the Middle East next; Africa is always at the bottom.”

Thornburgh, his voice rising in anger, said, “I’m tired of a nuanced approach to the problem of genocide. Genocide is wrong; it is evil. It should be combated by everybody. And I’m waiting for African countries to rise up and say, ‘We, as Africans, [condemn this],’ just as I’m still waiting for so-called moderate Islamic leadership to condemn the evil act of terrorists, of those ‘who act in the name of our faith.’ They are silent, and that causes me great pain and sorrow.”

But Michelmore countered that Islamic moderates had repeatedly condemned terrorism. “Islam is not a monolithic view about anything,” she said. “Some Muslims support some terrorist groups, yes, if they believe the ends are just. But are there Muslims who condemn terrorism? Sure, yes.”

While condemning terrorism herself, Michelmore said that the Bush administration sees terror strictly as a means of combat, “as opposed to a means for which [particular] ends exist. You could turn that around on us and some of our [military actions], and we won’t want to look at it that way.”

But Thornburgh was adamant that there were clear distinctions between actions of the American military and terrorists. “There is no comparison between American soldiers at war and terrorists who have no respect for human life, even for their own lives. They don’t have uniforms; they [hide] in the indigenous population. In war there is collateral damage,” so there are innocent victims, he said. “Bin Laden purports to act under Muslim principles. I feel frustration that a billion Muslims are not outraged when terrorists use mosques [for sanctuary].”

-Peter Hart