In class today, we shared our remarks and opinions about what had taken place during the previous class. Lisa Anderson, expert on foreign policy and international relations, visited the classroom and provided us students with an opportunity to offer her, as a mock president of the U.S., advice on how to ensure herself the best chance to become elected president, pointing to an approach to foreign policy and diplomacy in the Middle East. Departing back to todays class, we discussed the U.S.’s consistent insistence on imposing democracy over the past 30 or so years. The U.S.’s obsession with democracy is obviously not a bad thing, however, it shouldn’t be used as an excuse to force it on distant cultures. Democracy carries with it a moral undertone, which is the reason many politicians claim to operate using sets of morals. In general, the class surmised that mixing morals and personal beliefs with politics and policy is a detriment to potential election. We also discussed the U.S.’s particularly brutal “campaign” in the Middle East over the last several decades and its relationships with individual nations in the region. The idea of a “30 year apology” was proposed, partly tongue-in-cheek, as a way to start anew in the region with America’s next president. Other key suggestions pointing to improving foreign policy in the Arab world were easing tensions with Iran, the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and the possibly release of a “remastered” 14 Wilsonian points.
December 18, 2007...11:15 pm
Class Summary 12/18 (Will)
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