Timothy Lynch and Robert Singh

If you consider where we were only seven years ago, the notion that the world and President Bush’s record would be the victim not to terrorism but to bad mortgages would have seemed incredible. And yet, the political terrain today is not made by the war on terror as much as it is by a war for banks. Iraq, it now turns out, was less expensive than the proposed bailout of American capitalism. America has not been crunched by WMD wielding terrorists – the great fear in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 – but by credit.

Both candidates are playing a necessarily cagey game on economics – the platform on which neither expected the 2008 race to be decided. National security differences have, if anything, lessened between Obama and McCain. The winner is going have to make Pakistan central to his version of the war on terror. It was actually Obama who spoke first to the Pakistan problem. Again, his threatened belligerence toward this nation belying assertions that he intends to render US foreign policy more humble and, in the eyes of Islamists, more likeable. He intends no such thing, if his emerging rhetoric is any guide.

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Today’s Financial Times offers commentary by Susan Aaronson, a scholar who analyzes the murky relationships between trade and human rights. In it she poses the question: if both candidates are pro-trade, what else will they do with their policies?

Around the world, the press has portrayed the 2008 US presidential election as a choice between freer trader John McCain and “protectionist” Barack Obama. That traditional paradigm has helped the media simplify the differences between the two men. However, such these labels do not accurately describe either candidate. And it does not fully portray the candidate, Mr Obama, who has the more optimistic vision of trade.

The conventional wisdom labels Mr McCain as a freer trader because he supports three bilateral trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration. Mr Obama, in contrast, has come out forcefully against these agreements. Moreover, because Mr Obama states that he wants to review the effects of existing trade agreements, the press has found him to be unenthusiastic about trade liberalisation. (It is important to note that the US is already conducting a similar review of the World Trade Organisation.) Finally, Mr Obama has support from many US unions, which traditionally have taken a protectionist stance.

In fact, both men are pro-trade; they each support using trade agreements to open markets and create economic efficiencies. But the two have different perspectives regarding what trade agreements should do, what rules these agreements should include, and whom these agreements should directly benefit.
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In recent days Barack Obama has sought to establish bluer water between himself and John McCain over Iraq.

Did he succeed?

Timothy Lynch and Robert Singh

Obama and McCain duel over foreign policy in this NY Times article

Yes, he has succeeded to a degree. He has made it clear that Afghanistan will be the first front in his revised war on terror. By wrapping up Iraq quickly – most US brigades, save for a residual force, to depart with sixteen months – he is promising to redirect US violence on the Taliban. McCain, alternatively, says that the Iraq war should not be judged according to a timetable established in a US electoral campaign. If winning takes time then time it shall take. The war on terror is not a debate between Iraq-firsters and Afghanistan-firsters. It is a global war on multiple fronts that demands attention to all those fronts.

Two features are worthy of note. First, despite what elements of his domestic base may be hoping, a President Obama is not seeking a withdrawal of US forces from the Middle East theater. Rather, he is pledging to redeploy American troops so as to better advance the war on terror. His initial caution over the Iraq liberation was not grounded in a leftist pacifism. It was, instead, the product of his empiricism. The Iraq war was a tactical misstep which he is pledged to correct. But the essential strategy of Bush’s war on terror has not been disavowed. President Bush stands accused by the Illinois senator not for being a warmonger but for being an incompetent war monger. ‘Make me commander in chief,’ Obama is saying, ‘and I will make violence abroad more effectively. Pakistan watch out.’
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President Bush is not the only president, or even the first one, to favor trade expansion over human rights protection.

Susan Aaronson, expert in the intersection of trade and human rights, seeks to flesh out Bush’s views on how trade affects human rights, with a look at what this means for the current candidates.

See it here, published in the new edition of World Policy Journal.

The New York Times’ recent article on McCain’s visit to Iraq highlights a sticking-point for the presidential candidates’ campaigns – the war factor. But will anything really change?

Our own Sadhika Salariya has been working with a couple of authors who have their own ideas about what the next president will bring.

“As commander-in-chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if Al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad”.

-Senator Obama to Tim Russert of NBC News, February 2008

Ok! So the buzz is on, America’s excited, Obama and Hillary are head to head, and with McCain, all promise to reinvigorate the economy at home. Race, Immigration, Tax cuts, Health Care have all been central to the Presidential elections campaigning. However, amongst this entire bustle, it is very important to take a moment and reflect back. Are we moving away from something? Are there any loose ends emerging?

We all know George W. Bush’s exit is awaited; there is no question about it. We all have witnessed the enthusiasm on all sides. But remember: today is the Fifth Anniversary of the Invasion in Iraq. The war has been one of the key decisions in American political history that has won few admirers, with pundits and politicians eagerly bashing the tenets of the Bush Doctrine. This war exacerbated our Bush’s unpopularity towards the end of his second presidential term.

How much do you remember about how this war has unfolded?

It often comes to mind: why has foreign policy and Iraq diminished to become a yes-or-no issue?

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