U.S. Influence Undermined by Foreign Policy Missteps

April 2, 2008

Keith Brannon
kbrannon@tulane.edu

No matter who wins the race for the White House, one thing is certain: the next president is inheriting a foreign policy mess with two live wars, a weakened economy and a perceived erosion of influence by the international community. That's part of the message that Pulitzer Prize–winning author Samantha Power delivered to a mostly packed Thomson Lecture Hall on Monday (March 31).

Power, a former foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, said that America's reputation and moral authority have taken a hit due to the ongoing war in Iraq, allegations of torture and prisoner mistreatment and the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina.

The country's strong international influence was predicated on its military might, the perception that it used its power properly and the belief in the competency of U.S. leaders and military. All three areas have been called into question, Power added, especially in late 2005 with the increasingly unraveling war in Iraq and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

"To have those happen so closely to one another just changed so many people's views around the world about whether we could look after our own, whether we could do what we set out to do," Power said.

She said the next president must abandon the Bush administration's reliance on military action as the primary tool of influence and instead pursue diplomacy and international engagement to restore America's reputation.

According to Power, the country can learn from the unconventional tactics of Sergio Vieira de Mello, a United Nations envoy killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2003.

Power, who recently wrote a biography on Vieira de Mello, said he fervently believed in having an open dialogue with enemies and adversaries to try to find common ground. He also sought out nongovernmental advisers who were entrenched in the daily lives and politics of the areas he was trying to influence rather than relying on traditional 20th-century experts on foreign policy, Power said.

Power, who won her Pulitzer for a book on 20th-century acts of genocide, delivered good and bad news on the conflict in Darfur, Sudan.

On the positive side, for the first time in the history of the United States, she said there is a strong, mobilized anti-genocide constituency putting pressure on the government to act.

These groups include not only peace activists, public health advocates and human rights organizations, but also traditionally conservative constituencies such as Christian church groups, evangelicals and Republicans.

"It's an amazing amalgam of America," she said.

Those voices are having an impact: the Bush administration has committed $3 billion in aid and pledged to support 26,000 peacekeepers in the region. However, the challenges remain. There have been 400,000 deaths, 3 million people displaced and countless foreign aid groups expelled or prevented from entering the country by a newly emboldened Sudanese government. Only 9,000 of the peace-keeping forces have been deployed into the region, Power said, and few European countries are taking an active role in Darfur. 

"The United States has not been joined (in Sudan) internationally. There has been very little follow-up leadership," she said.