Foreign Policy

The skyline in Washington, D.C. might be slightly lower than America’s other cities, but its glass ceilings remain well below average. While women have made notable progress in attaining positions of leadership and power in the private sector; their counterparts in Washington and state capitols across the country lag far behind. The U.S. isn’t dead last in female participation politics, but it’s pretty close (at 77th, we're a notch above Madagascar). In politics, women still struggle to reach the highest seats of power.
 
Susan Rice, whose nomination for Secretary of State was preemptively and undemocratically trampled to death, is one such woman. In many ways Rice challenged the gender biases still present in American politics and, temporarily at least, lost. Both the boardroom and Capitol Hill remain highly patriarchal, and gender parity a distant ideal.

The tenth anniversary of the genocide in Darfur has focused renewed attention on the crimes that the Sudanese regime has committed against its people and the pending International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for President Omar al Bashir and other Sudanese officials. But the fact that the regime’s crimes extend far beyond Darfur and continue to this day has remained under the radar.

Public differences between members of Congress and AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) have largely been papered over in recent weeks, but there remains a palpable sense of frustration with AIPAC’s legislative policy agenda on Capitol Hill. 



The unprecedented dearth of support for parts of AIPAC’s legislative agenda this year may be a sign the façade of invincibility surrounding the Israel lobby is beginning to erode. In the case of ‘The United States-Israel Strategic Partnership Act of 2013’ (S. 462, H.R. 938), members of Congress appear to have defected en masse; weeks after introduction, the Senate version has only 15 cosponsors. 



Southern Turkey – Two nights ago, my Refugees International colleagues and I paid a visit to a cramped apartment on the Turkish-Syrian border. Dr. Najjar, a Syrian physician, showed us various types of medical equipment he had gathered over the past week. They will be sent into a northern Syria province in the coming days to resupply hospitals and clinics.

The narrow hallway of the apartment was lined with stretchers still in their packaging; the cloth parts  almost festive in their bright reds and royal blues. Folded up and stacked together, they resembled lawn furniture for a patio in summer. One room was jam-packed with crates of catheters, gastrointestinal tubing, and enormous bales of gauze. Another had an assortment of smaller boxes containing surgical scissors, child-sized oxygen masks, and athletes’ heart monitors to be put to medical use. But it was the syringes that made the greatest impression.

With a large national deficit looming, the American economy struggling and our lawmakers unable to agree on a solution to reduce the national debt, it is surprising that there has not been a harder push to “cut the fat” off our foreign expenditures immediately. Each day millions of federal tax dollars go out to help rebuild the societies of Iraq and Afghanistan.  Yet insurgency and an uncooperative government remain in both places, costing us dearly. One specific area that can use some “fat” cutting is the way we Americans obtain visas from both countries. With the host country’s visa machine operating inefficiently and their governments unsupportive administratively, this expense to American taxpayers cries out for action from the highest levels of our decision makers in Washington.

Throughout my tenure in the U.S. House of Representatives and on the Committee on Appropriations, I have had the opportunity to help shape U.S. development assistance. And I am proud of the United States’ leadership in providing support and funding for critical global health initiatives that both save lives and strengthen our position in the world. While we have made incredible gains over the years, there is still more to be done and I am committed to ensuring the U.S. continues to reach those most in need.

Shahad is staying in a refugee camp near the Syrian border with her aunt. Her mother was killed, and at just two years old, she’s been shot twice. The bullet went into her spine.

Now, Shahad is paralyzed from the waist down. She can’t run and play like the other little kids.

Her aunt brought her to Lebanon to have the bullet removed and to keep her safe. But the conditions in the camp are difficult, especially for little children like Shahad.

As economic and political power shifts east, western nations are responding by reinforcing trade and security alliances across Asia. With the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement, a new military base in Australia, and deepening alliances across the region, the U.S. has recommitted to the Asia Pacific. As President Obama’s foreign policy pivots to Asia and the vision of “America’s Pacific Century” unfolds, U.S. strategic relations with Sri Lanka must also be examined.
 
Sri Lanka is the region’s longest standing democracy with a burgeoning economy and vast opportunity for commercial, military and cultural partnerships. It has much to offer the U.S., already Sri Lanka’s biggest trade partner augmented by the 2002 signing of the Trade and Investment Framework Agreement. There exists a military-to-military relationship and the USAID presence has grown steadily since 1948. Education is another essential link, and Fulbright scholars are exchanged each year.

Erbil, Iraq – Last week in Iraqi Kurdistan, two solemn anniversaries were being commemorated: the chemical weapons attack on Halabja 25 years ago and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. However, there was another anniversary that went largely unnoticed: the second anniversary of the conflict in Syria.
In the past two years, at least 2 million Syrians have been internally displaced, as many as 4 million inside the country need humanitarian assistance, and more than a million are now refugees in neighboring countries.

The sheer number of displaced people has overwhelmed the international community’s capacity to respond. Neighboring countries are scrambling to cope with new arrivals. Camp conditions here in Iraq are so crowded that refugees are increasingly striking out on their own, seeking better prospects in nearby cities and towns.

The United States spends north of seven hundred billion dollars annually in the name of defense. No non-state actor let alone another state power comes close to parity with the United States armed forces. Given the preponderance of American military power most any military threat could be described as asymmetric. Perhaps there is no better manifestation of an asymmetric and yet still existentially threatening actor than that of transnational terrorism. At any place and at any time the transnational terrorist threat is real regardless of the dollar figure America spends on its military.