Barack continued his leadership in opposition to the Iraq war today with a major policy address.  He outlined his plan to end the war and called for a new surge in diplomacy devoid of the Washington conventional thinking that led us into the greatest foreign policy disaster of a generation. 

Following the speech, bloggers nationwide, including from Blue Hampshire and Granite Grok, were invited to discuss the strategy with two Obama foreign policy advisors -- renowned Human Rights expert and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Samantha Power, and former Clinton Administration Deputy Secretary of Defense, Sarah Sewall via a conference call.

On the call, Power and Sewall lauded Barack for rejecting the Bush Administration’s narrow framing of the debate and addressing Iraq in a broader foreign policy context.

Power began by expressing frustration with the oversimplification that our options only include “suspend[ing] judgment until the surge has demonstrably failed” or believing “that if we leave, there will be no consequences or the consequences are not our problem.”

“It was classic Senator Obama,” Sewall added, “to challenge conventional wisdom and refusing to get trapped in the administration’s false dichotomy.”

Power and Sewall also praised Barack’s judgment in recognizing that the humanitarian crisis in Iraq is escalating into a strategic crisis that is destabilizing neighboring countries as well. 

Lamenting that “we’ve been focusing on Iraq a la carte,” Power praised Barack’s commitment to “diplomacy in the region, engaging Iran and Syria and not being afraid to do so just because you may not agree with the character of the regimes.”

Sewall expanded:

“By and large, the political response has been one of accepting terms of the debate…and talking about the timing of desurging rather than more broadly thinking about ‘what are American interests in the region as a whole’…

[Obama] has elevated up to the strategic questions and the questions about prioritization and interests.”