I took note with great interest an announcement by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan E. Rice that appeared on the Obama Administration’s White House.gov blog (www.whitehouse.gov). Ambassador Rice, outlined the administration’s purpose and goal in the speech that was delivered later in the day at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, and has been termed by the Administration a ‘New Era of Engagement’ with the world. Finally, it seems we have a President whose first instinct, in the face of an international crisis, is to resist the impulsive urge to blow the shizzle out our enemies as the first solution. In the letter Amb. Rice also noted:
Everyone notices when a superpower becomes an agent of change—in word and deed, in policy and tone. We are demonstrating that the United States is willing to listen, respect differences, and consider new ideas. Even more importantly, we are advancing our interests and making Americans safer.
Today, as we steer a new course at the United Nations, our guiding principles are clear: We value the UN as a vehicle for advancing U.S. policies and universal rights. We work for change from within rather than criticizing from the sidelines. We stand strong in defense of America’s interests and values, but we don’t dissent just to be contrary. We listen to states great and small. We build coalitions. We meet our responsibilities. We pay our bills. We push for real reform. And we remember that, in an interconnected world, what’s good for others is often good for America as well.
Specifically, this development carries with it numerous implications with regard to our nation’s economic foreign policies and the myriad international relations emanating from it. Amb. Rice noted, for example, that “We cannot champion important U.N. missions in Iraq and Afghanistan and then oppose the budgets to fund them.” Further, she said the world body is “essential to our efforts to galvanize concerted actions that make Americans safer and more secure and as a vehicle for advancing US policies and universal rights.”
While US leadership is needed to tackle global challenges like nuclear proliferation, the financial crisis, mass atrocities, climate change and drug trafficking, “it is rarely sufficient,” said Rice, who has cabinet rank. She urged instead the effective cooperation of a broad range of friends and partners. Other countries, Rice added, “will likely shoulder a greater share of the global burden if the United States leads by example, acknowledges mistakes, corrects course when necessary, forge strategies in partnership and treats others with respect.”
Noting that in the age of globalization, troubles affecting fragile nations can menace strong ones, she made a call “to grow the ranks of capable, democratic states… that can deliver on both their international responsibilities and their domestic responsibilities to their own people.”
Adding that “We are demonstrating that the United States is willing to listen, respect differences and consider new ideas” with global partners. “There is no substitute for the legitimacy the UN can impart or its potential to mobilize the widest possible coalitions,” Rice said in outlining President Barack Obama’s new diplomatic priorities, including a commitment to work constructively with nations large and small.
Read more here. . .
Source: AFP newswire with reporting by Gerard Aziakou.
