A FAUTY FOREIGN POLICY

A fellow blogger recently directed me to the new foreign policy page on the White House website - I'm ashamed to say I didn't think to check it earlier. Maybe, on a subconscious level, I didn't want to... I was admittedly taken by the more positive aspects of the day, despite the devastation in Gaza.

Overall, I'm not impressed with these initial foreign policy declarations (the new president said nothing explicit in his inaugural address), but I'm not surprised either. 

On the big issues, Obama remains true to the rules his predecessors have played by. Aside from a supposed commitment to diplomacy, the only subtle difference is that he plans to "revitalize Afghanistan's economic development" by increasing troop levels there. Over the past few years, extremist elements in the war-torn country have been stepping up their insurgency. Surely they will not take kindly to more American boots on the ground. Things could get ugly and Barack seems ready. For some unexplainable reason, he thinks the biggest threat to US security is "the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan and Pakistan." Either he is badly misinformed, or he has some hidden agenda I haven't quite figured out yet.

There is a cleverly worded section on Iran and significant attention is given to the sovereign nation's nuclear ambitions. There is also a special subsection on nuclear weapons that emphasizes the Obama administration's desire to "move towards a nuclear free world" - too bad it doesn't mention the state of Israel and its nuclear arsenal which remains the biggest threat to regional security...

In the section on Israel, we are unfortunately reminded of reality. Like its predecessors, this new administration believes that its "first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel." It goes on to highlight Obama's support for the devastation our "strongest ally in the region" wreaked on Lebanon in 2006, all in the name of "self defense." I wonder if he feels differently about what happened in Gaza... how fortunate for him that the Israelis halted their assault before he took his oath.

The website also highlights the administration's indiscriminate support for billions of dollars in continued aid to an undeserving ally - money that would be better spent on a whole variety of important domestic issues. The US-Israeli alliance is completely one sided and it brings no benefits to American voters. What it does do is increase opposition to the US and raise the potential for violence and terrorism. It is a bad sign for peace in the Middle East that the White House feels the need to brag about Obama and Biden having blindly "advocated increased foreign aid budgets" for the state of Israel. We got the point already!

Today the world witnessed history in the making. The change is real, but much more is needed. Now the real work begins. Our new president says most of the right things when it comes to domestic issues, but what we hear on foreign policy is much less promising, even though change in that arena is needed just as badly. The last thing we need is more of the same. 

There is absolutely no hope for peace in the Middle East (and indeed the rest of the world) so long as the US-Israel alliance remains unchanged. The sooner we move in a different direction, the more likely it is we will see some sort of peaceful resolution to this conflict that has dragged on for far too long. Yes, Obama has important domestic priorities, but there is nothing in the realm of foreign policy that is more crucial to global security than a peaceful resolution to the question of Palestine.