Probably you have heard from Senator Obama something like this statement, "We not only have to end the war in Iraq, but we have to change the mindset that got us in to Iraq in the first place".
Often we have heard: "All democrats want to end the war" or "All democrats want to extend diplomatic efforts" and so on.
The reality is even if they want to do those things as long as their mindset is framed the same as before they are not going to be successful in achieving those goals.
Senator Clinton campaign has been successful in blurring the key differences between Senator Obama's positions and her positions on foreign policy. What is important about these differences is that they are due to different mindsets. One is basically the same mindset which has been governing US foreign policy for many years (not only Bush era) and the other one has not been tried for a very long time. One is rooted in arrogance and self-centrism and the other is based in leadership, values and professionalism.
Some elements of the first mindset which will be the future picture of her possible presidency in foreign policy are as follow:
1) Unconditional support and friendship for dictators if they are considered allies even if they are suppressing their people.
This element will not change anything with regard to terrorism, because the suppressed people will hate US even more and ordinary people will be recruited to organizations such as Al-Qaeda. Plus US will not have any clout over some of these unconditional friends such as Saudi and Pakistani dictators to deal with their sponsorship of "Wahabism" which is a distorted branch of Islam sponsored by Saudi Royal family and the ideology of Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
2) Categorizing leaders of the countries in to "good guys" and "bad guys" , and considering presidential talk to bad guys a reward to them, and this prevents US from engaging with serious negotiations with those so called "bad guys". The example of those who are categorized in this group are Iranian leaders.
Based on this element negotiation only happens when the preconditions are met by the other side of the negotiation before the negotiation even takes place. This approach is more close to bullying others than negotiating with them and negotiation would never even takes place because accepting those preconditions are in the control of the other side and they would not accept US preconditions because those preconditions are objectives of the negotiations which must be followed through out diplomatic efforts with offering Carrots besides sticks. So basically this mindset always offers sticks and "no carrots". Therefore no real negotiation ever takes place despite the gesture of willingness to negotiate.
3) The US is so powerful that it does not "NEED" any help from other nations and international community.
This element prevents US from offering any incentives to nations such as Iran in return for help needed on different issues challenging US. So basically it promotes the idea of "Sticks without carrots".
Now does this mindset sound familiar? Yes, that is exactly what governs Bush's foreign policy. So when Senator Obama says "I don't want Bush-Chaney Lite", he is not exaggerating about his opponent’s mindset.
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