America in the World

Obama confirms intentions to renew America's relationship with Muslim world

Confirming that he'll be sworn in as America's 44th President using his full name - Barack Hussein Obama - the President-Elect tells the Chicago Tribune:

"I think we've got a unique opportunity to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular,'' Obama said Tuesday, promising an "unrelenting" desire to "create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens and ours to prosper together."

Shortly after his Inauguration Senator Obama confirmed his plan to give a major address in an Islamic capital.

The first Vietnamese American is elected to Congress

Joseph Cao's story is a great story of what immigrants can achieve in America. A refugee from Saigon, Republican Cao has become an attorney, lost his home in Hurricane Katrina and has now won one of New Orleans' Congressional seats after the incumbent Democrat had been accused of corruption.

Condoleezza Rice pays final visit to Britain as Secretary of State, and pays tribute to special UK-US relationship

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband pays tribute to America's outgoing Secretary of State - "you'll be a very hard act to follow". Ms Rice says that the UK-US relationship remains more "special" than ever.

Ms Rice later played the piano for Her Majesty The Queen, during a private recital at Buckingham Palace:

'Soft pre-emption'

In today's New York Times David Brooks looks at the ideological continuity between the doctrine of 'soft pre-emption' developed in the latter stages of the Bush presidency and its popularity within the new Obama foreign policy team.  Three key quotes:

Weak states not enemy powers pose the great threat: "On Jan. 18, 2006, Condoleezza Rice delivered a policy address at Georgetown University in which she argued that the fundamental threats now come from weak and failed states, not enemy powers. In this new world, she continued, it is impossible to draw neat lines between security, democratization and development efforts. She called for a transformational diplomacy, in which State Department employees would do less negotiating and communiqué-writing. Instead, they’d be out in towns and villages doing broad campaign planning with military colleagues, strengthening local governments and implementing development projects."

Robert Gates' 'soft-pre-emption': "Gates has told West Point cadets that more regime change is unlikely but that they may spend parts of their careers training soldiers in allied nations. He has called for more spending on the State Department, foreign aid and a revitalized U.S. Information Agency. He’s spawned a flow of think-tank reports on how to marry hard and soft pre-emption."

Obama's appointees share this view: "During the campaign, Barack Obama embraced Gates’s language. During his press conference on Monday, he used all the right code words, speaking of integrating and rebalancing the nation’s foreign policy capacities. He nominated Hillary Clinton and James Jones, who have been champions of this approach, and retained Gates. Their cooperation on an integrated strategy might prevent some of the perennial feuding between the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom and the National Security Council. As Stephen Flanagan of the Center for Strategic and International Studies notes, Obama’s challenge will be to actually implement the change. That would include increasing the size of the State Department, building a civilian corps that can do development in dangerous parts of the world, creating interagency nation-building institutions, helping local reformers build governing capacity in fragile places like Pakistan and the Palestinian territories and exporting American universities while importing more foreign students."

David Brooks' article I Condoleezza's January 2006 speech

Obama opts for continuity as well as change in foreign policy appointments

AmericaInTheWorld's Tim Montgomerie has written for The Guardian's website about Barack Obama's foreign policy appointments, confirmed today (including the reappointment of Defence Secretary Gates, pictured above):

"In adopting hawkish positions on Afghanistan, Iraq and supporting General Petraeus' cross-border raids into Pakistan, it is clear that the era of American exceptionalism is far from over. Barack Obama's America will remain a nation that is inclined to intervention, is willing to use military force when necessary and is supportive of Israel. All those who fear a world without American involvement can rejoice at that."

Read the full piece here.

George W Bush: I want to be remembered for liberating fifty million people

In an end-of-presidency interview, George W Bush has recorded some of the things he hopes to be remembered for:

Iraq and Afghanistan: "I'd like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace."

Compassionate conservatism: "He also said he wanted to be seen as a president who helped individuals, "that rallied people to serve their neighbor; that led an effort to help relieve HIV/AIDS and malaria on places like the continent of Africa; that helped elderly people get prescription drugs and Medicare as a part of the basic package."" (Breitbart).

Education: "I think the No Child Left Behind Act is one of the significant achievements of my administration because we said loud and clear to educators, parents and children that we expect the best for every child, that we believe every child can learn, and that in return for Federal money we expect there to be an accountability system in place to determine whether every child is learning to read, write, and add and subtract."

First Lady Laura Bush spoke specifically about women's rights:

"It's certainly been very rewarding to look at Afghanistan and both know that the president and the United States military liberated women there; that women and girls can be in school now; that women can walk outside their doors without a male escort," the first lady said, according to White House excerpts. "I worry about Afghanistan, but I will always have a special place in my heart for the women that I've met there," she said. "I think as we look all around the Middle East, we'll see that women can be the ones who really lead the freedom movement, and that American women are standing so strongly, I think, with the women in Afghanistan and other places."

In the video below Laura Bush talks to Meet The Press about women's issues in Afghanistan: