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| FORMER ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE FOR AFRICAN AFFAIRS TACKLES
POST-9/11 SECURITY ISSUES The Bush administration has neglected the nation's post-9/11 security interests and the Administration's unilateralism has come unhinged. So ran the lecture delivered by Susan E. Rice, Senior Brookings Fellow, at The Fletcher School on September 29th. In a sometimes scathing assessment, Rice said the US position in Iraq has assumed the shape of Boston’s Big Dig (the largest public construction project in US history). Calling for broad change in the style and substance of US foreign policy, she said that “we [the US] need to lead more justly, openly and generously.” We can do so, she insisted, “if we have the will to change”. Rice, who was also the former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in the Clinton administration, outlined a framework for change. “It is time to redefine success in Iraq,” she said. A new style of international leadership would entail ‘listening’, ‘caring about what others think’, ‘taking advice’, and ‘building consensus at the outset’. “A new American leadership would aim to maximize global public goods.” Rice also touched on the role of the UN as well as harmonization of international law. “We need to nurture and strengthen the UN”, she said, and the US “should mend, not end” problematic treaties. She also added that “the UN knows a lot more than the Defense Department about nation building”. On the broader Middle East theater, Rice insisted that President Bush has not been adequately engaged diplomatically in the Palestine-Israel issue. Such leadership in absentia has left a vacuum into which the mired conflict has folded. As it stands, she continued, “except for wishing Arafat away, we have no plan for progress.” She also criticized the Administration’s strategy of postponing US mediation in the Israel-Palestine conflict until after decapitation of the Iraqi regime. Moreover, the US pursued “the wrong” enemy, she added, saying that while the Administration marshaled effort and resources for the Iraq campaign, North Korea was left to develop nuclear means and potential for proliferation. While precious time passed, key windows for negotiation shut. Rice provided the estimate that North Korea now has enough enriched uranium for six nuclear warheads. Moreover, the US has provoked so-called rogue nations, by signaling out ‘the axis of evil’ along with defining a policy of pre-emptive strikes; repudiating bi-lateral diplomacy with the North; and attacking Iraq. These measures have effectively communicated to 'the axis' and like regimes that their security in fact lies in nuclear weapons. Iran is now pressing forward according to this rationale, she explained. Rice’s framework for change in US national security and foreign policy consisted of a number of measures, to “speed Homeland security”; work with failed states; give more generously to poor and developing countries; find additional funding for securing ‘loose nukes’ (the Nunn-Lugar program); and engage North Korea. She also rebuked the Administration for not delivering on its promises to Africa (as given in Bush’s State of the Union Address). Already 20 million have died from HIV/AIDs, with 6,000 people dying each day, she explained. A panel of respondents--professors from The Fletcher School and Tufts University—offered a number of insights. Professor Alan Henrikson stated that “the US is in arguably an imperial situation,” pursuing a “push the borders out” strategy. He said that in the case of Iraq—'the central front'—the US had tipped again into this second engagement by virtue of the logic of imperial pressures. To encapsulate the structural position of the US, he offered the aphorism: “Rome was not built in a day." (Professor Henrikson of the Fletcher School is a noted authority on US foreign policy and world order.) Assistant Professor Jeff Taliaferro likened current US foreign policy to that of Wilhelmine Germany at the close of the 19th century. He sketched parallel patterns of self-destructive hegemony, which ultimately unhinged that state. Both countries are cases of overstretch, he insisted, highlighting US “overdeployment” in Iraq and Afghanistan. Commenting on the low ebb of US relations internationally, Professor Taliaferro asked rhetorically what incentives the US can offer other nations in return for the sort of international cooperation (and financial contribution) it is seeking in Iraq. (Professor Taliaferro is a member of Tufts’ Political Science Department.) A lively Q&A session followed this well-attended lecture, which forms part of the International Relations Lecture Series.
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2002 The Fletcher School, Tufts
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