Obama and the Potential for a Fresh Perspective on Foreign Policy

Source: TIME - (Click to Read Full Article)

"The day I'm inaugurated, not only will the country look at itself differently, but the world will look at America differently," Obama told an audience in Audubon, Iowa, last month, "because not only do I have the experience of working at the highest levels of government on foreign policy but also because the leaders of others counties will know that I've got family members that live in small villages in Africa that are poor so I know what they're going through." It is an argument he has made in most of his stump speeches lately, as he tries to show that his judgment trumps the years of foreign policy experience of men like Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who led us into the war in Iraq. In an effort to underline his foreign policy credentials, Obama called a foreign-policy forum today in Iowa with three former Clinton administration officials who have endorsed his candidacy.

Obama's multicultural background has, of course, been used against him in other ways, notably with a barrage of e-mail attacks that charged (inaccurately) that as a child living in Indonesia Obama was a practicing Muslim. Two Clinton volunteers have been fired for their role in forwarding the e-mails. But Obama has tried to turn the issue around to his advantage. "I've lived in Muslim countries, even while I'm Christian, so I know how they're thinking about issues," Obama says in his typical stump speech. Electing a president that has lived in a Muslim country "could not be a more effective message that we are breaking from Bush and Cheney policies. And it will make us more safe. It will give me more credibility on the world stage than any other candidate that is running."