Tomorrow night, the U.S. presidential contenders will discuss domestic and foreign policy at a town hall meeting style debate in New York state. But what exactly should they be talking about?
Two surveys last month by polling firm Rasmussen found that more than half of Americans believed national security and the war on terrorism were very important issues, while a third said Afghanistan is also of key importance. Meanwhile, a poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project last month found that half of Americans view China’s emergence as a major world power as a threat to the United States, while three quarters of members of the public said that the large amount of U.S. debt held by China was a very serious problem.
CNN iReport: Your global views on the election
Global Public Square invites readers to share their thoughts on the most important foreign policy issues facing the United States and to talk about why they matter to you. Do you want to see President Obama and Mitt Romney talking about Iran’s nuclear program? China’s currency? The Arab Spring? Or something else completely? We’ll be rounding up and publishing some of the best responses later this week.
In a major speech two weeks before he debates President Barack Obama on international issues, Mitt Romney argued that Obama is failing to provide the global leadership needed and expected by the rest of the world.
Romney called for the U.S. to join allies in ensuring that rebels fighting government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad get military hardware they seek. He also criticized Obama's overall approach to the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And he argued that last month's attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, that killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans "was likely the work of the same forces affiliated with those that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001."
What's the difference between the candidates' stances and what does this mean for U.S. policy? Fareed Zakaria weighs in on this and more in this edited conversation:
Q: One of the points you've brought up before is that these two candidates really see eye-to-eye on a lot of foreign policy issues. The only one that we really heard that was different was Romney's stance on arming the Syrian rebels. How does the United States go about doing that?
ZAKARIA: If you were to have listened to that speech, you would assume, atmospherically, that Romney had very strong disagreements with the Obama administration, but his problem is that Obama has run a foreign policy almost like a moderate Republican. It's been internationalist. It's not been too liberal in the sense of human rights oriented. It's been tough. So the Syrian issue is the one place Romney can find to make a distinction. FULL POST
By Matthew Rojansky, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Matthew A. Rojansky is deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The views expressed are his own.
Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution demanding the immediate release of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and calling for sanctions against officials responsible for her imprisonment. Some Senators had sought even harsher penalties – freezing NATO-Ukraine cooperation, recalling the U.S. ambassador, and boycotting Ukraine’s 2013 OSCE Chairmanship – yet the resolution ignored the bigger picture of U.S. relations with Ukraine, an important country of nearly 50 million at the crossroads of Europe and Eurasia.
The Tymoshenko case has imposed a kind of foreign policy myopia on many in Washington that does not serve U.S. national interests. Americans benefit greatly from security cooperation and economic engagement with Ukraine, and the success of ongoing reforms and free and fair parliamentary elections in October will determine the shape of U.S.-Ukraine ties for years to come. With so much at stake, it is important to recall a few guiding principles for effective U.S. policy towards Ukraine.
No policy will succeed without a baseline level of trust between officials in Washington and Kiev. To secure and sustain that trust requires consistency, including on sensitive political issues. It is therefore essential that as U.S. officials underscore the need for Ukraine’s upcoming elections to meet the highest international standards of freedom and fairness, they match their rhetoric to reality during and after the election. An oft heard complaint from Kiev is that Washington “moves the goalposts” on Ukraine’s democracy – that Ukraine delivers on specific requests for transparency or reform only to discover that Washington now wants something more or different altogether.
In less than two weeks, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney will square off in the first of a series of presidential debates that will include foreign policy. But who should they be drawing their inspiration from? And whose examples should they be avoiding?
Global Public Square asked a group of historians and commentators for their take on the most successful and least successful U.S. presidents, from a foreign policy point of view. Yesterday, we looked at the best. Today we are looking at the least successful. (All views expressed here are, of course, the writers' own.)
In less than two weeks, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney will square off in the first of a series of presidential debates that will include foreign policy. But who should they be drawing their inspiration from? And whose examples should they be avoiding?
Global Public Square asked a group of historians and commentators for their take on the most successful and least successful U.S. presidents, from a foreign policy point of view. Here, we feature their picks of the best, and on Friday, we'll highlight those considered the least successful. (All views expressed here are, of course, the writers' own.) Agree or disagree? Share your thoughts in the comments. FULL POST
By Michael O’Hanlon, Special to CNN
Michael O’Hanlon is senior fellow at Brookings and author of The Wounded Giant: America’s Armed Forces in an Age of Austerity. The views expressed are his own.
The partisan furor over President Obama's Middle East policy strikes me as misplaced.
While there is plenty to debate in foreign policy, and even more to debate on economic matters — themselves central to America's future global role — the allegations of supposed Obama apologies do not hold water.
I say this as someone who was dubious about Obama's big promises during his 2007/2008 campaign. The talk of reconciling with dictators, stemming climate change, making a big dent against global poverty, working towards a nuclear-free world, achieving Middle East peace and healing the broader breach with the Islamic world was unrealistic and, for me at least, overdone.
In fairness, the big vision did help Obama get elected, and it did excite the world at large about his presidency. But that also set up false expectations around the world about what he could really do. And that has led to disappointment, especially in the Middle East. (In Europe, Obama is still popular. In much of Asia, President George W. Bush was never so unpopular and the U.S. stock was never so low prior to Obama's inauguration.) Throughout the Islamic world, Obama's standing as measured by public opinion polls is similar to Bush's. That is surely a disappointment.
However, even for those of us who shared in the critiques of Obama the candidate the first time around, the way he has conducted his presidency has been anything but apologetic.
Romney has tried to dredge up the standard-issue Cold War Republican attack on Democrats: the world is dangerous, our enemies are growing strong and Obama is weak. The problem is, most Americans recognize that none of this is true. The world is actually quite peaceful right now; our adversaries – like Iran – are weak and isolated. China is growing strong but has not used its power to contest America in national security terms. The one enemy Americans recognize and worry about remains al Qaeda and its affiliated Islamic terrorist groups, and Obama has been relentless in attacking them.
Mitt Romney is a smart man who has had much professional success. But even Republican insiders have admitted to me that he has been strangely amateurish on foreign policy. His campaign, they note, is not staffed by the obvious foreign policy heavyweights – people like Robert Zoellick, Richard Armitage, Richard Haass and Stephen Hadley. As a result, he has blustered about Russia’s being our greatest geopolitical adversary (actually it is a second-rate power), seems willing to start a trade war with China, is vague yet belligerent about Syria and Iran and has gone back and forth on the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan.
 |
Post by: |
By John D. Sutter, CNN
(CNN) - CNN iReport is asking people all over the world to give up driving for a day - and document it - in support of women in Saudi Arabia, who aren't allowed to drive because of religious rules in that conservative Middle Eastern kingdom.
Go to the iReport assignment page to learn how to participate.
FULL POST
In a recent op-ed in the New York Times, former President Jimmy Carter makes the case that the United States is "abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights."
He points to some of the government’s counterterrorism policies including, interrogation tactics at Guantánamo Bay and the "president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations or 'associated forces.'”
Carter also points to the use of drones and its negative impact on American foreign policy: FULL POST
By Fareed Zakaria
This past week, Los Cabos, Mexico, was quite literally turned into a global public square. Leaders from 19 top economies plus the European Union gathered to discuss the world's major crises: the euro, global growth, Syria. But the G-20 summit, as it's called, also shed light on a few crucial relationships.
Take the U.S. and Russia, for example. Much was made of how Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin leaned away from each other during talks. Commentators said it felt as chilly as a Moscow winter. Contrast that with Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao: a warm handshake and big smiles.
But the meeting that really got me thinking was the one between two Latin American leaders: Mexico's Felipe Calderon and Brazil's Dilma Roussef.
Why? FULL POST
|
|
Post by: |
In an interview Tuesday with CNN, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton applauded India's efforts to reduce its imports of Iranian oil but urged it to cut them further to keep pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program.
"India has reduced its dependence on Iranian oil. I know their refineries have stopped asking for orders to purchase Iranian oil. So they certainly have taken steps," Clinton said. "India shares exactly our goal; their goal is our goal, and that is to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear weapons nation."
What role does India play in global diplomacy, specifically with Iran? Here's a re-post from a March look at India's "friendly diplomacy" to offer some perspective:
India is America's friend, Israel's friend and Iran's friend. FULL POST
When U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to make Kolkata her first port of call on her visit to India this week, it took more than few people by surprise. Even in India, it wasn’t the most obvious choice for the in-demand diplomat to spend a day of her tight schedule in country’s eastern metropolis.
But in recent months, Kolkata, the capital of the state of West Bengal, led by its mercurial chief minister, has become a key battlefield on which the fight over foreign investment in India is playing out, and a high-profile visit may go a long way in advancing the U.S. position.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertising practices | Advertise with us | About us | Work for us | Help
