Foreign Policy

A common attribute in Turkish political history is the flexibility to adapt to external changes. In spite of an inability to foresee all future regional uncertainty and political variables, Turkish policy makers have been able to agilely adjust their stances to tackle changes in the geopolitical theater.  Turkey currently faces one such transformation in the Arab Spring erupting in her geographic backyard. Few suspected this political transformation would extend beyond the Arab world. Similarly, fewer in Turkey expected it would put the country in the delicate state that now characterizes its affairs.

Ten years have passed since America’s invasion of Iraq. I’m proud to have voted against that war right from the start, even when it was unpopular to do so. The Bush administration failed to make the case that Iraq was an imminent threat to our national security and failed to plan for the aftermath. What’s more, there was no conclusive evidence that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. This was a war of choice, not a war of necessity. Plain and simple.

This week’s anniversary is a time to draw the lessons learned from Iraq so that we can avoid repeating past mistakes as we confront a real proliferation challenge in the Middle East: the nuclear threat from Iran. This is not as a re-litigation of the past, but as a sober reflection on the future.

In the words of New York Times Columnist Thomas Friedman, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become for American diplomats a hobby instead of a necessity. Thus Obama could be the first sitting American president to visit Israel “as a tourist.”

This is unfortunate, because another missed opportunity to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will increase the likelihood of renewed violence (and U.S. involvement).  

It doesn’t have to be that way. With most of the attention in Jerusalem and Washington now directed to Iran and its potential nuclear threat, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is stuck in neutral. Resolving Israel-Iran issues could help restart Israel-Palestine talks.

In December 2012, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Dublin City University (DCU) to launch the Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction (IICRR). This is an important new initiative that will ensure the lessons learned in the Irish peace process can be applied elsewhere in conflict and post-conflict societies. 

The achievement of peace in Ireland involved a process of unparalleled complexity involving community, economic, religious and international relations.  The new Institute for International Conflict Resolution and Reconstruction (IICRR) at DCU will ensure that the definitive story of the Irish peace process is captured, analyzed with academic rigor and made available to actors in various peace processes globally. In the institute today, leading academic experts in international relations, security policy, conflict resolution, law, enterprise and other relevant areas are working on:

Expectations are low for President Obama's planned Mideast visit this month, because most of the tools he's packed in his problem-solving kit have been tried repeatedly without much success. Sanctions, aid, rhetoric, shuttle diplomacy - what else might help build peace in the region?

Two tools that haven't yet been tried are available right now. They would work by bringing more women to the table.

No one denies that women and children suffer most from armed conflicts, yet they are largely absent from Mideast policy discussions that might prevent the recurring clashes, and from negotiations to end them. With a larger role in the process that better reflects their stake in the outcome, women might shift the talks in unpredictable - and productive - ways.

On March 16, 2003, my daughter Rachel Corrie was crushed to death under a bulldozer driven by an Israel Defense Forces soldier. The bulldozer was manufactured in the United States by Caterpillar, Inc. and paid for by U.S. foreign military financing aid. My tax dollars paid for the machine used to kill my daughter.
 
In a telephone conversation the next day, Israeli Prime Minister Sharon promised President Bush a “thorough, credible, and transparent” investigation into Rachel’s killing with a report to the U.S. Government. In response, April 24, 2003, our family received a printed PowerPoint presentation circulating in Congress purporting to explain the death of our daughter. This report, created by officers in command of the IDF unit that killed Rachel, concluded, “Ms. Corrie was not run over by a bulldozer, but sustained injuries caused by earth and debris which fell on her during bulldozer operation.”

According to FOX News, Team Obama has decided to deploy 14 additional ground-based interceptors (GBI) in Alaska and California against the North Korean nuclear and missile threat, reversing itself on numbers proposed by the Bush administration.

Better late than never, I suppose.

Though it highlights the failure of the Obama administration’s policies toward North Korea in the first term in general, it’s a good idea for a couple of reasons.

New administrations often offer openings for new policies. One area where the US needs new initiatives is the South Caucasus because new opportunities and new challenges are emerging here and they each contain serious implications for critical U.S. interests. As the 2008 Russo-Georgian war showed, events in the South Caucasus have repercussions that go far beyond the region to encompass European security and that is still true today. Washington needs to grasp that this area’s intrinsic importance and local trends seriously affect major relationships in Europe and with Russia. The administration must not confine itself to seeing this region as merely an overflight or transit route for withdrawal of U.S. forces and equipment from Afghanistan but as an intrinsically critical region of considerable strategic significance whose security is also bound up with vital U.S. interests.

For more than a decade we observed a number of Irish Leaders from all political parties at the annual gathering at the White House to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. This year President Obama will continue to do what President Bush and President Clinton did by taking a picture with a bowl of shamrocks and telling the world that this is an example of what peace looks like. However, they omit that the peace progress from the 1998 Good Friday Agreement has somewhat stalled.

Ten years ago this month, brutal attacks by the Government of Sudan against the people of Darfur first began to reach the world's attention. With over 300,000 dead and 4 million people displaced, it is past time for Congress and communities of conscience to address the root cause of atrocities in this long-suffering country – an unrepresentative regime that rules by repressing its own people.
 
As news of the horrors taking place in Darfur began to spread through Washington in 2003, members of Congress were quick to demand action, calling for U.S. sanctions to be placed on responsible Sudanese government officials.  Congress showed leadership by declaring the "atrocities unfolding in Darfur" to be genocide in a concurrent resolution in July 2004, two months before Secretary of State Powell publicly declared that a genocide had occurred. Despite global attention, some of the most organized advocacy efforts of our time, and swift action from Congress, the U.N., and other leaders in the international community, violence and insecurity continue to plague the region to this day.