Addressing the pressing foreign-policy questions of Iraq, Iran and Darfur, Samantha Power, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and advisor to presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., advocated the candidate's foreign policy platforms to around 12 Dartmouth students in Sanborn Library on Saturday morning. Power emphasized that Obama's alleged "experience deficit" is not a hindrance to his leadership capability.
"That's a very 20th-century conception of what experience actually matters," Power said.
Power argued that Obama's multicultural family background gives him more relevant world experience than candidates who have served in Washington, D.C., for years. Obama had an African-American father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, and has worked in Chicago's inner city. Having taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, Obama also has a more thorough knowledge of the Constitution than his top competitors, she said.
"By working in the inner city in a real broken place, he actually has the dirt under his fingernails that one needs to deal with broken people and broken places," Power said.
Power pointed to Obama's ability to oppose the majority opinion as another quality that will serve him well in office. Obama argued in 2002 against the invasion of Iraq, when 80 percent of Americans supported the war. If elected to the presidency, Power said, Obama will devise a withdrawal plan that is both responsible for American troops and for the Iraqis who have become dependent on the United States' presence.
While Obama agrees with the amendment introduced by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., that calls for decentralization of the Iraqi government, passed by the Senate this September, he fears that its stipulations may give the United States too much control over Iraq's fate, Power said. He plans to support moving Iraqis from dangerous areas, but does not see the United States' creation of a "fantasy Iraq government" as a positive role for the country, Power added.
"That level of deference to where Iraqis want to go but can't get to is different than treating Iraq as if we have to put this piece there and that piece there," Power said.
Although Obama realizes the necessity of the withdrawal of combat troops from the country, Power explained, it will also be important to keep a small number of troops in Iraq to aid in diplomacy and to counter terrorism. Power said that this effort will greatly improve the United States' international reputation.
"If we think we're going to recover international standing by getting out and leaving in our wake a blood bath, it's really unrealistic," Power said. "We're going to have to carry the burden of what happened in Iraq."
When asked about Obama's plan for the current genocide in Darfur, Power, author of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize"winning book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, called a solution the "three Ps" plan, composed of peace, punishment and protection. She also recognized the strain that concurrently confronting both the conflicts in Iraq and Sudan will present for the next president. Obama, who has traveled to Darfur, will have to take a much more active role in challenging the genocide than the Bush administration's "spasmodic democracy," Power said.
"As an administration, we've been checking the box of anti-Darfur sentiment without any follow-through," Power said. "It's in [Obama's] bones. He recognizes that we are not the America of 1995 where we snap our fingers and countries do what we say. We actually have to put something on the line."
Power, who first agreed to work for Obama after meeting him over dinner almost three years ago, said that his group of foreign policy advisers, a mix of both non-political figures and those who have "defected from the Clinton Camp," may be more effective than the groups of his competing candidates. Sen. Hillary Clinton's, D-N.Y., group is composed of well-known members of her husband's cabinet, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger. Power questioned whether the reappearance of such familiar figures is actually a good idea.
"For a lot of Americans, that's really consoling. You have a sense of experienced professionals. That's incredibly important but it's also important that we're not doing things like we've always done them," Power said. "Can too much experience actually be a bad thing?"
Power also discussed Obama's views on Iran, saying that he opposes the use of force in the country and hopes that Iran will eventually become a member of the World Trade Organization. Power pointed to this stance, as well as Obama's past opinions on nuclear weapons and negotiating with dictators, as further evidence of his willingness to diverge from unproductive policies.
"Obama just needs a better job is the problem," Power said. "He needs to be president."
