Jeane kirkpatrick biography of barack obama
THIRTY YEARS ago, the quintessential neoconservative Jeane J. Kirkpatrick argued in The National Interest that the United States should now become “a normal country in a normal time.” The Cold War had been a special, aberrant case in the American experience, justifying an extraordinary level of global commitment and activity. However, in the entirely changed circumstances of the post-Cold War era, it was time for America to return to an earlier pattern of behavior based on a much more restricted view of the nation’s interests and commitments.
“Most of the international military obligations that we assumed were once important are now outdated. Our alliances should be alliances of equals, with equal risks, burdens and responsibilities,” argued Kirkpatrick, a former Democrat who had served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan administration. “It is time to give up the dubious benefits of superpower status and become again an unusually, successful, open republic.” The American people were tired of the burdens of foreign policy and wanted a reordering of priorities in favor of discrimination abroad while attending to pressing domestic affairs.
Her position never enjoyed much popularity. There was not an immediate demobilization and no drastic scaling down of America’s military commitments across the globe. The strategic and mental habits formed during the four decades of the Cold War were very powerful. Indeed, other contributors to these pages and elsewhere argued that, having just won a great victory and become the world’s only genuine superpower, the United States should exploit what the prominent columnist Charles Krauthammer called the “unipolar moment.” The dangerous bipolar world of the Cold War had been replaced by a unipolar world in which the United States had no serious rivals. “American global leadership,” a “New American Century,” “indispensable nation,” “benign hegemony”—these became the new credos of the U.S. foreign policy establish In November of 1979, Jeane Kirkpatrick published her famous piece, “Dictatorships and Double Standards.” The foreign policy essay’s argument — endorsing U.S. support for non-communist authoritarian regimes — was controversial, but what truly captured national attention was the author: President Carter’s foreign policy was being skewered not by a Republican, but by a life-long Democrat. Kirkpatrick would become a celebrated stalwart of Republican foreign policy and later became Ronald Reagan’s first ambassador to the United Nations. Kirpatrick’s shift from liberal Democrat to card-carrying Republican was not an outlier moment. It exemplified a turning point in history, where liberal Democrats abandoned their party to become Republicans — most of them neoconservatives. Throughout the late 1970s, Democratic foreign policy intellectuals such as Paul Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams, and others formally aligned themselves with the Republican party. And notably, in 1982 a young fellow at Stanford University, Condoleezza Rice switched her party affiliation from Democrat to Republican after disillusionment from the Carter Administration’s foreign policy. One president’s foreign policy turned off a generation of experts, leaving Democrats with a stagnate security establishment for well over a decade. A similar future awaits the Republican party, due to the political upheaval of today. The rise of Donald Trump has shaken the core of the Republican foreign policy establishment. Trump’s undisciplined foreign policy thinking has been apparent throughout the presidential campaign, sending worrisome signals internationally to long-standing allies. Trump’s positions have so disfranchised the Republican national security community, the threat of a permanent exodus of many of these professionals is very real. A foreign policy novice, Trump has articulated positions that run counter to traditional Republican ideals. Throughou Speaking for anyone from the grave carries risks -- especially if one portends to represent the views of the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's "combative" representative to the United Nations. Still, Jeane Kirkpatrick was a writer, a professor, and an intellectual of the first magnitude. She would have preferred, I believe, that her views extend beyond her mortal life and be put forth, as best once can surmise (and I knew them as well as anyone) even at the risk of getting them wrong. Her core belief was that words matter, and that competence and integrity crosses party lines. She believed in the role of international law, although with the caveat that America should never shy away from its own views, even while showing a decent respect for the opinion of mankind. When in 2003 President George W. Bush sent her as his chief envoy to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva (I was there with her), she balked at his instructions to advance the doctrine of preemptive self-defense as justification for the war. "I won't sell it; it won't sell", she said of the new theory which would have legitimated the use of force way beyond anything the UN Charter contemplated. Instead, she chose to defend the US entry into the Iraq war on grounds that it was really not a new war at all, but merely a continuation of the first Iraq war, which had resulted in a UN negotiated ceasefire with Saddam Hussein, which he repeatedly breeched. Did that make a difference in garnering diplomatic support for the war? Most assuredly. Without the baggage of "preemptive war" as the new international norm the US was able to narrowly avoid condemnation by the Arab League and others which would have dealt an enormous diplomatic blow to U.S. efforts at the outset of the war. When, early in her tenure at the UN post, Reagan's State Department instructed Jeane Kirkpatrick to vote to condemn Israel for "aggression" in its 1981 bombing of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak, she refused. "Aggre President of the United States from 2009 to 2017 For other uses, see Barack Obama (disambiguation). "Barack" and "Obama" redirect here. For other uses, see Barack (disambiguation) and Obama (disambiguation). Barack Obama Official portrait, 2012 Barack Hussein Obama II Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. In 1996, Obama was elected to represent the 13th district in the Illinois Senate, a position he held until 2004, when he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. In the 2008 presidential election, after a close primary campai
Averting the Coming Republican Foreign Policy Brain Drain
Barack Obama
In office
January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017Vice President Joe Biden Preceded by George W. Bush Succeeded by Donald Trump In office
January 3, 2005 – November 16, 2008Preceded by Peter Fitzgerald Succeeded by Roland Burris In office
January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004Preceded by Alice Palmer Succeeded by Kwame Raoul Born
(1961-08-04) August 4, 1961 (age 63)
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