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.87 That Rashid hasObama s ear is indisputable.In January, he flew in fromLahore, Pakistan to attend a meeting with Obama at theWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and,among others, Obama advisers Samantha Power and ScottGration, Wilson Center president Lee Hamilton (one of theco-authors of the Iraq Study Group report) and Indian-bornPepsi CEO Indra Nooyi.88Much of the focus on the Obama administration s foreignpolicy has understandably been on his top-level appointees.His main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination,Hillary Clinton, was appointed as Secretary of State.In anexpected move, Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense in theBush administration, was asked to stay on.James Jones, whohad worked for the Bush administration as special envoy forMiddle East security, was named as National Security Adviser.Janet Napolitano, the governor of Arizona, was tapped asthe third Secretary of Homeland Security.One of Obama sclosest advisers, Susan Rice, who many speculated was in linefor Secretary of State, was made Ambassador to the UnitedNations.Obama reinstated the UN Ambassador as a fullcabinet post, as it had been under the Clinton administration.161 Obama s AmericaRice had been Undersecretary of State for African Affairsduring the Clinton administration, but threw her supportbehind Obama early on in the primaries.As a Senior Fellowat the Brookings Institution, Rice had focused on Africa,failed states, development issues and multilateral diplo-macy.Seeing the horrific results of the warfare in Rwandaon a visit in 1994, she became a vocal critic of the Bushadministration s inaction over seeking to stop the genocidein Darfur.Obama visited a refugee camp in Chad on his tripto Africa in 2006 and sponsored the Menendez Amendmentfor UN peacekeeping in Darfur.One of the first tests forhis new administration will be how to react to the warrantissued by the International Criminal Court for the arrest ofOmar al-Bashir, the president of Sudan.Genocide in Africa is also a prime concern for anotherObama adviser, Samantha Power, Professor at the CarrCenter for Human Rights Policy in the Kennedy Schoolof Government at Harvard.Obama had read her PulitzerPrize-winning book on US foreign policy and genocide, AProblem from Hell, over Christmas in 2004 and requested ameeting in 2005.In her book, Power was openly critical ofthe Clinton administration s failure to act in the face of theRwandan genocide.89She became a top foreign policy adviser to the Obamacampaign but was forced to resign after she, thinking shewas speaking off the record, told a Scottish journalist thatHillary Clinton was a monster for the way she was runningher campaign.She returned as part of Obama s transitionteam after the election and was named senior director formultilateral affairs at the National Security Council.On a stop in California promoting her latest book (abiography of the UN special envoy to Iraq, Sergio Vieira deMello, who was killed when a bomb blew up UN headquar-ters in Baghdad in 2003), Power spoke passionately of deMello s belief in talking to dictators, in dignity promotion ,i.e.meeting basic material needs as a prerequisite for real162 The Obama Doctrinedemocratic development, and in creating the conditions fora freedom from want and from fear.Power recalled thata number of people came up to me afterwards and said, Wow, that s the Obama Doctrine, and I was like, Oh mygod, it is. 90The end of American exceptionalismJuly 2009 marks the thirtieth anniversary of one of the mostremarkable speeches given by an American president.Inthe summer of 1979, President Jimmy Carter announced tothe nation that he would soon give a major policy speechon energy.He retreated to Camp David and for ten dayslistened to consultations with Americans from all walks oflife.On 15 July 1979 he delivered a speech that touched onthe energy crisis, but focused on what Carter regarded asa larger problem the crisis of confidence that had sappedthe energy of the American people.Carter s address to thenation was later dubbed the malaise speech, although henever used the word.However, the description was apt,because Carter pointed to a general crisis of confidencethat threatened to destroy the social and political fabric ofAmerica.Not only were Americans losing confidence inthe future, they were turning away from the past, living ina present that focused on self-indulgence and consumption.American national identity is no longer defined by whatone does, but by what one owns , Carter announced.The immediate solution to this crisis, according to Carter,would be to impose limits on energy consumption.He wasemphatic on the need to wean the US from dependence onforeign oil: Beginning this moment, this nation will neveruse more foreign oil than we did in 1977 never. 91Three momentous events had preceded Carter s presi-dency and had in a sense set the stage for the malaisespeech.In 1973, the Organization of Petroleum ExportingCountries (OPEC) had declared an oil embargo in response163 Obama s Americato US support for Israel during the Yom Kippur war.Oneyear later, President Nixon had resigned in disgrace asa result of the Watergate scandal.Less than a year afterNixon s ignominious resignation, the US had suffered itsfirst military defeat in Vietnam.Carter won the presidencyin 1976 as a direct result of a national disillusionment withgovernment and a desire for change.In foreign policy, Carter attempted to move the countrybeyond the Vietnam debacle by rejecting the Cold Warthinking that had made the US see all global conflict throughthe prism of the conflict between the US and the SovietUnion.In June 1977, Carter delivered a major foreign policyaddress at Notre Dame University. Human Rights andForeign Policy was an attempt to reconcile foreign policywith the American national character.All too often, Carterproclaimed, the US was willing to compromise its principlesin the name of political expediency.Vietnam was a primeexample of this wayward course.To that end, he expressedhis firm belief that the US had now moved beyond the inordinate fear of Communism that had compromisedAmerican values.Carter wanted to make the fight forhuman rights the cornerstone of American foreign policy.Furthermore, he proposed that the US devote its resourcesto combating hunger, disease, illiteracy, and repressionand called for closer cooperation between the US and newlyinfluential countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.92When Carter took office in 1977, two opposing viewsof the future of American foreign policy had emerged inthe wake of the failure of detente.The Committee for thePresent Danger (CPD), formed in 1950 to lobby for the mili-tary build-up proposed by National Security Council Report68, was revived in 1976 as an outgrowth of Team B, whichPresident Gerald Ford had established to assess whetherthe CIA had underestimated Soviet capabilities.Team Breleased a report warning that the Soviet Union was seekingglobal hegemony and the reconstituted CPD lobbied for a164 The Obama Doctrinemassive defence build-up in order to ensure continued USmilitary superiority.Team B and the CPD were in effecta precursor to the Project for the Next American Century(PNAC).One of Team B s members, Paul Wolfowitz, wasone of the founders of the PNAC in the 1990s.93The Trilateral Commission, which was founded in 1973,saw the current geopolitical situation in an entirely dif-ferent light.One of its founders, Zbigniew Brzezinski,became Carter s National Security adviser
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