US MUST LEAD, AGAIN
By Condoleezza Rice
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In this young century, the 9/11 attacks, the global financial crisis and the unrest in the Arab world have struck at the heart of vital US interests. If Americans want the tectonic plates of the international system to settle in a way that makes the world safer, freer and more prosperous, the US must overcome its reluctance to lead. We will have to stand up for and promote the power and promise of free markets and free peoples, and affirm that American pre-eminence safeguards rather than impedes global progress.
The list of US foreign policy challenges is long and there will be a temptation to respond tactically to each one. But today’s headlines and posterity’s judgment often differ. The task at hand is to strengthen the pillars of our influence and act with the long arc of history in mind.
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In the Middle East we must patiently use our aid, expertise and influence to support the creation of inclusive democratic institutions. The fundamental problem in the region is the absence of institutions that can bridge the Sunni-Shia divide, and protect the rights of women and minorities. Even as we make necessary immediate choices – including arming the Syrian rebels – we must insist upon inclusive politics. The US cannot afford to stand aside; regional powers will bring their own agendas that could exacerbate confessional divisions.
As we work with reformers across the region, we should not forget that Iraq has the kind of institutions that are meant to overcome these divisions. Given its geostrategic importance, the chaos engulfing its neighbours and Iran’s destructive influence, our re-engagement with Baghdad is sorely needed.
The US needs to turn again to the development of responsible and democratic sovereigns beyond the Middle East. The George W. Bush administration doubled aid spending worldwide and quadrupled it to Africa. It channelled assistance to countries that were investing in their people’s health and education, governing wisely and democratically, building open economies and fighting corruption. Ultimately, these states will make the transition from aid to private investment, becoming net contributors to the international economy and global security. US tax dollars will have been well spent.
We must also not lose sight of how democracy is solidifying in the western hemisphere. US assistance and trade policy can help democracies in Latin America to provide an answer to populist dictators. At the same time, we must speak out for dissidents – from Cuba to Venezuela to Nicaragua. Mexico needs attention across a broad agenda that includes the devastating security challenge that threatens both it and the US.
The US “pivot” to Asia (a region that had hardly been abandoned) has focused heavily on security issues. America should remain the pre-eminent military power in the Pacific. But consider this: China has signed free-trade agreements with 15 nations over the past eight years and has explored FTAs with some 20 others; since 2009 the US has ratified three FTAs negotiated during the Bush administration and it has continued – but not concluded – talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which began in 2008. One of the US’s best assets in managing China’s rise is its regional economic engagement.
A robust free trade policy will strengthen our economy and influence abroad, as will developing our domestic resources, such as the North American energy platform. High oil prices empower Venezuela, Russia and Iran. We are developing alternative sources of energy but they will not replace hydrocarbons for a long time. It is a gift that much of our demand – possibly all of it – can be met domestically and in co-operation with US allies, Mexico and Canada.
Most important, we need to reassure our friends across the globe. The rush to court adversaries has overshadowed relations with trusted allies. Our engagement with Europe has been sporadic and sometimes dismissive. Strategic ties with India, Brazil and Turkey have neither strengthened nor deepened in recent years. Hugo Chávez and the Iranians have bitten off the extended hand of friendship. There is no Palestinian state because it will only come through negotiation with a secure Israel that is confident in its relationship with the US. The decision to abandon missile defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, to “reset” relations with Russia was pocketed by Vladimir Putin who quickly returned to his anti-American ways. Friends must be able to trust in the consistency of our commitment to them.
Finally we cannot forget that strength begins at home. Global leadership rests upon a strong economy built on fiscal discipline and robust private sector growth. Ultimately, our success depends on mobilising human potential, something the US has done better than any country in history. Ours has been a story of possibility, not grievance and entitlement. Ambitious people have come from all over the world to seek out the opportunities America provides. The absence of a humane and sustainable national immigration policy threatens this great asset.
Our talent has historically come from every part of American society, without regard to class and economic circumstance. But when a child’s zip code determines whether she will get a good education, we are losing generations to poverty and despair. The crisis in US education is the greatest single threat to our national strength and cohesion.
The American people have to be inspired to lead again. They need to be reminded that the US is not just any other country: we are exceptional in the clarity of our conviction that free markets and free peoples hold the key to the future, and in our willingness to act on those beliefs. Failure to do so would leave a vacuum, likely filled by those who will not champion a balance of power that favours freedom. That would be a tragedy for American interests and values and those who share them.
The writer is a former US secretary of state
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We must first put our own house in order. That includes a return to fiscal sanity and Constitutional government. We can worry about the rest of the world when we no longer have to worry day to day about our own country's survival.
Ms. Rice is correct about our education system. It breeds ignorance, immorality, and liberalism, i.e., it is poisoning the civil ordered society with its defective and destructive influences on those we cram through it.
Personal responsibility people. If your company ships jobs overseas, the tax bracket of the entire management of the company doing it rises, alot... IF we have to come into a foreign country because you harbor terrorists, don't plan on us rebuilding you, it's a waste of time and our resources, tough love folks. I could go on, My point, The PC stuff is stupid and it is destroying us, enough fluff people, we are out of time for that game.
including some supporting chorus,
for shame FT for shame
You don't have any right to lead anything, much less tell other countries what to do. Your foreign policy administration was a TOTAL disgrace to the civilized world, and you should be ashamed to write another article perpetuating the same lies that led us to hundreds of thousands of deaths over nonexistent WMDs. Moreover, your claim of "exceptionalism" is exactly why we are mired in so many deep crises right now. You are just a country like ANY other, so get off your high horse and accept something you have never swallowed before: HUMILITY.
A "populist dictator" like Chávez has never caused as many deaths of innocent people as you and the lackeys under your helm did - please, FT, do NOT let such people write here anymore. It is simply pathetic.
Now where is RON PAUL where we need him?
yeah you did. Lot of good it's done so far. Another chance? I hope not.
Today, the US makes its citizens believe that the rest of the world is a threat that has to be fought. Has the US perhaps been hijacked by German-Ashkenazi central bank families who are since 1913 printing the US dollars and making money on wars? According to Thomas Jefferson, the FED is unconstitutional. Eustace Mullins in his explanatory book "The secrets of the Federal Reserve" explains that the US is indeed economically hijacked and that wars and crises are created. The effects? Now that 911 is brought-up, unfortunately it is hard to lay aside the many analyses of the 911 attacks that make it impossible to believe the 'official story'. Perhaps this article uses the press to falsify history.
I find it hard to be emotionally touched by the 'aid' of the US to the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The best aid would be to discontinue government support to central bank-owned energy, agribusiness and pharma to invade these regions, and to stop disrupting and impoverishing these regions by systematically polarizing and militarizing the vested interest groups, be it the ME or elsewhere. Apart from lives overseas, it also costs American lives.
What triggered my response today was the sympathy card drawn for this article. Such misleading argumentation is also used to make foreign electorates accept constitutional changes. This is for example the case with India and the non-democratic, supra-national institute of the Jan Lokpal Bill that is supported by world bank and IMF, and perhaps also BIS. In terms of its introduction, positioning relative to the vested regulative framework, and the lack of checks & balances, this bill bears the same signature as fed act, homeland security bill, patriot act, lisbon treaty: it effectively aims to get India controlled by central bankers while circumventing India's legislative framework, social structure and province differences. If successful, the bill could prevent India from consolidating the region around it to form the differentiating global interest block of in the pool with the US, China, Russia and Europe. The misleading argument in the lokpal case is 'anti-corruption'. Everyone will be 'anti-curruption'. However, to understand these tactics of crushing a country's nobility under the heading of 'anti-corruption', Macchiavelli's "The Prince" explains the effects of nobility with their prerogatives on national cohesive strength, to give corruption in the Lokpal Bill / central bank case a different perspective.
The current diversity in our world with its colors, mentalities, habits and nature is a basis for freedom of opinions and questioning, and for you and me a reason to travel and see new faces. This as opposed to the bankers' move towards a world government that is hegemonic, dictatorial, flattening and a threat to the personal development of individuals. Because a society is the collection of individuals, it is a threat to the development of the global society.
I might disagree with Pat Buchanan's piece the other day ( http://www.ft.com/...html#axzz21kDnr1QE ), but UNLIKE this one, was at least: 1) Honest, 2) A clear discernable point of view, 3) Actionable
So the do nothing Secretary of State, who helped lead the world into the lie of Iraq writes from her vast record of accomplishments, which I seem not to remember except "Axis of Evil", accompanied by her leading our child idiot, W, in gospel sings in the White House while young men died for their hubris or immaturity.
George
”Take up the White Man´s Burden
Sent forth the best ye breed –
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives´ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild –
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child”
This coming from the world's leading supplier of weapons and military training to Saudi Arabia and various other Arab dictatorships; the country that gave Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak $1.4 billion dollars in military aid per year. Does Thomas Friedman know Condoleezza Rice is stealing his best jokes?
It's breathtaking that someone who was so close to power could be so deluded. Our only hope is that Ms Rice actually knows how things really are and that here she is merely an advocate who doesn't believe a word of her brief.