A Window into Obama’s Foreign Policy

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A Window into Obama’s Foreign Policy
Susan Rice as Head of Foreign Policy Team Augurs Bold Pragmatism
By Spencer Ackerman 11/14/08 6:00 AM


Susan Rice (flickr)


In April 2007, as the United States was enmeshed in two wars, a Brookings Institution scholar and Clinton-era State Dept. official testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in favor of taking military action as a last resort to stop the genocide in Darfur.

“A collective shame” was what Susan Rice, now one of President-elect Barack Obama’s closest foreign-policy advisers, called the international community’s failure to act. Rice was hardly sanguine about what it would take to stem the genocide, nor did she exhibit a preference for taking military action.

In passionate but clear language, she instead proposed a multistep policy of robust financial sanctions against Sudan and the imposition of a no-fly zone around the afflicted western Sudanese province. But if that failed, Rice continued, a starker measure should follow.

“The U.S. should press for a Chapter 7 U.N. resolution that issues Sudan an ultimatum,” Rice told the committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), now the vice president-elect. “Accept the unconditional deployment of the U.N. force or face military consequences. The resolution would authorize enforcement by U.N. member states collectively or individually.”

As for the potential consequences and risks, Rice added, “We have to acknowledge that they can’t be eliminated. Yet we also have to acknowledge the daily cost of the status quo of a feckless policy characterized by bluster and retreat. … I would submit, Mr. Chairman, Sen. Lugar, that that cost is too high.”

Rice’s testimony could offer a window into the next four years of U.S. foreign policy. According to interviews with longtime associates, the woman who was just named to head the foreign-policy transition team for an Obama administration — and herself a likely candidate for deputy national security adviser or other top position — is a rigorous thinker and thorough pragmatist, impatient with ideology and incompetence.

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http://washingtonindependent.com/18516/susan-rice