I participated in Hillary Clinton’s on-the-record conversation and press briefing at the Council on Foreign Relations today by conference call. It was fascinating even if much of what I heard was boilerplate. What was frustrating, however, was that Clinton virtually ignored Africa, mentioning President Obama’s Ghana speech in passing and then only to draw some larger generalizations. African issues did not garner so much as a mention in Q & A. At the same time, the speech was quite general in providing an overview of the Obama Administration’s approach to foreign policy, an approach that differs markedly from its predecessor in a host of ways on issues ranging from re-cultivating our alliances and establishing coalitions and working with the international community to the United States’ approach to climate change and weapons proliferation, policies on torture, and talking with both enemies and states with which we have tensions. None of these references involved African Affairs, but all pretty clearly have implications for the Obama Administration’s approach to issues across the continent.
(I hope to write something about Clinton’s talk and the Q & A soon, but I thought I’d get some of the African-related possibilities down here first.)
