An Evening Lecture & Discussion

»The Obama Foreign Policy: A New Beginning - or Bush II?«

featuring Professor John E. Rielly, former President of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations

John Rielly gave a profound analysis of Barack Obama's foreign policy and compared it to Obama's predecessors in office. He emphasized President Obama's multilateral approach to solve global foreign policy and secutrity challenges. He pointed out that this multilateralism no longer conveys restrictions regarding values or forms of government. Obama choses aliiances strategically instead of morally. Obama also no longer proclaims the notion of American exceptionalism, Rielly says. Instead, he holds the view that US international involvement should not be linked to the transmission of American values nor governmental structures.

Although President Obama acknowledges tha danger of overburdening with regards to military and other involvement overseas, he has increased military spending due to the two wars (Iraq and Afghanisatn) he has inherited from George W. Bush. According to John Rielly, the limits of what the United States can bear (financially and regarding human resources) have been reached and he warns of imperial overstretch alluding to the fate of great powers and empires in the past.

On the subject of Afghanistan John Rielly unerlined that the U.S. has never been successful at nation building and that it should therefore not evkoe great expections in this respect. Barack Obama is tempted to get engaged more in nation building, Rielly admitted, but should refrain from it. To illustrate his point, John Rielly referred to the British Empire in the 19th century and their approach to nation building. They managed successfully to build up civillian structures and effective administrations after their military involvement because they were prepared to send thousands of well educated men with tehir families to the oversees (e.g. India, Africa) in order for them to stay there for 20 or 30 years to reconstruct the country. The imperial officers were educated at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and spoke many exotic languages that helped them to be accepted abroad. Furthermore, they were highly regarded at home.

As for Iran, John Rielly came to the conclusion that neither sanctions would be effective nor that military intervention would be sensible. Consequently, he said, the world will eventually have to accept Iran as a nuclear power. Iran being a nuclear power may even have a certain stabilizing effect in the region since no neighboring country would dare to attac Iran. Rielly explained that Iran's strive for the nuclear bomb can even be related to when seen from the Iranian perspective: Being surrounded by nuclear powers (Russia, Pakistan, India and Israel), Iran must feel threatened and insecure, Rielly argues. He also points at the example of North Korea which has never been an object of attac by the United States mostly because of its possession of nuclear arms.

When asked about President Obama's biggest success in foreign policy, John Rielly mentioned the improvement of the United States' image in the world. This may sound like a small accomplishment, he said, but it is an enormous achievment taking into account that the U.S. was considered threat during the Administration of George W. Bush. Rielly quoted from a poll done by Stern Magazine in 2007 according to which the majority of the German populatipon thought the U.S. to be a largher threat than Iran.

John Rielly impressed his audience with his very clear and substantial assessment of US foreign policy and by sharing very openly his views. He presented facts and figures, illustrated and explained thoroughly his argumentation and conveyed much of his personal experience.