Foreign Policy Blogs

The Candidate's Advisors Make the Wo/Man

The war in Iraq has grown increasingly unpopular at home, and it continues to be unpopular abroad. [The BBC World Service broadcast a fantastic documentary about how the US-lead war in Iraq changed the world's mind on the US].

So what do the US Presidential candidates propose to do about it? Spencer Ackerman investigated this question with a coterie of Obama's foreign policy advisors for an in-depth article published this week in The American Prospect magazine. Here's the line-up of Obama foreign policy advisors:

"[They] come from diverse backgrounds. They are former aides to Democratic mandarins like Tom Daschle and Lee Hamilton (Denis McDonough and Ben Rhodes, respectively); veterans of the Clinton administration's left flank ([Anthony] Tony Lake and Susan Rice); a human-rights advocate who helped write the Army's and Marine Corps’ much-lauded counterinsurgency field manual (Sarah Sewall); a retired general who helped run the air war during the invasion of Iraq (Scott Gration); and a former journalist who revolutionized the study of U.S. foreign policy (Samantha Power). Yet they form a committed, intellectually coherent, and surprisingly united foreign-affairs team. (Shortly before this piece went to press, Power resigned from the campaign after making an intemperate remark to a reporter.)"

And here's Ackerman's executive summary on his interviews with these advisors: "They envision a doctrine that first ends the politics of fear and then moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering “democracy promotion” agenda in favor of “dignity promotion,” to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither — an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership."

I highly recommend reading the full article. As Ackerman reminds us, it's important to pay attention to who the Presidential candidate choose as his/her foreign policy advisors: "When considering any presidential hopeful's foreign-policy promises, it's important to remember that what candidates say is, at best, an imperfect guide to their actions in office. What proves to be a more reliable indicator of presidential behavior is a candidate's roster of advisers."

 

Author

Melinda Brouwer

Melinda Brower holds a Masters degree in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She received her bachelor's degree in Political Science and Spanish at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received a graduate diploma in International Relations from the University of Chile during her tenure as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. She has worked on Capitol Hill, at the State Department, for Foreign Policy magazine and the American Academy of Diplomacy. She presently works for an internationally focused non-profit research organization in Washington, DC.