(Richard Falk)
Yesterday Today's Zaman News, a Turkish English-language daily newspaper, published an opinion piece by Richard Falk, an American professor of international law at Princeton University. Titled “What to expect from the next American president in the Middle East,” the piece gives a well-rounded, in-depth summary of the current status of the US presidential election. For the Turkish audience Falk forecasted which Presidential candidate would be best suited to relate positively with the Middle East, end the war in Iraq, and improve relations with Iran.
On the Republican candidates he wrote: “On policies toward the Middle East McCain and Huckabee speak with one voice, and its reliance on military solutions to outstanding conflicts is indistinguishable from what we have been hearing these past seven-plus years from Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.”
As a professor of international law it is not surprising that he came down firmly in that camp for Obama's more multilateral approach to US foreign policy-making.
“Obama seems less likely to choose a military option when confronted with a hostile regime in the Muslim world. He has strongly endorsed a creative approach to diplomacy, offering to meet with hostile leaders in the Middle East, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran. Clinton sharply criticized him for this, seeming to want to do diplomacy in the old way by viewing a meeting of an American president with a foreign leader as of enormous benefit to the latter and a sign of American weakness — and Obama's inexperience. Clinton propos[es] relying on power, status and threat rather than on the “soft power” options of discussion, mutuality and accommodation.”
Yet he stressed that “aside from Iraq there are no significant foreign policy differences between the approaches taken by the three candidates (McCain, Clinton and Obama) so far as the Middle East is concerned.”
This op-ed brings Falk's writings full circle. In the past he has commented [and here] on the Turkish elections for the American media.
Yesterday brought Turkish audiences another Obama endorsement. Vural Cengiz, the president of the Turkish-American Businessmen's Union, penned “Obama will be good for the Turks — and the world,” published by the Turkish Daily News, another English-language Turkish newspaper.
