Obama’s foreign policy

(You listened to Obama’s foreign policy advisors�who was there and what was the message?) The message boiled down to Obama has thought long and hard about national security and foreign policy. One former advisor to Clinton asked a series of questions about national security�such as, is our country safer now?�and the answer to all of them was no. Essentially the theme of the panel was to talk about how Obama’s grand strategic policy is different from the Bush administration. This was not a Bush bashing fest. (Did they articulate what an Obama presidency would do to combat terrorism?) They say that’s in the grand strategy as well, and that Obama has talked a lot about terrorism in his major foreign policy speeches. One analyst said Obama would directly target terrorism, and the other side the analyst said Obama would also use diplomacy and work on common security with U.S.’s partners. (Were there any questions on which Obama was specific?) Iran came up, and Obama’s advisors said Obama would directly contact the U.S.’s allies to come up with a plan and figure out what Iran has to do about denuclearization and then draw up consequences if Iran didn’t agree. Obama talked with European leaders already about consequences during his recent trip to Europe.