The NYTimes Opinion Pages Room for Debate: Weakness or Realism in Foreign Policy?

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/03/11/weakness-or-realism-in-foreign-policy/the-double-standard-for-judging-american-strength

 ROOM FOR DEBATE

What does the Obama administration's reaction to crisis in Ukraine and elsewhere say about its influence in international affairs?

President Barack Obama at the White House in January.  PHOTO CREDIT Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

"Unremarkably, those who advocated a vigorous response to Russian occupation of what before 1954 was Russian territory have been silent about another violation of international law that in June of this year will enter its 48th year. This is Israel’s occupation of the Arab territories it has controlled since the June 1967 war.

The United States is far from sanctioning Israel for this unending occupation, which Secretary of State John Kerry apparently proposes to extend indefinitely, by allowing many years more of effective Israeli control over the occupied Palestinian territories. One of the key elements of the American approach to this occupation has been in effect to subsidize it with aid and investment not only for the occupying power, but also for the structures that help keep the occupied population from resisting its oppression. Thus a conference in Prague this past weekend chaired by Tony Blair and Madeline Albright touted visions – that are central to the Kerry plan – of new investment and Palestinian growth, without a single word about ending the occupation that has crippled the Palestinian economy and society for generations.

This double standard towards these two occupations is one reason why many the world over take a skeptical view of the moral hyperventilation over the Ukraine of both critics and supporters of the Obama administration." Rashid Khalidi The Double Standard for Judging ‘Strength’

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Read the debate in full  

Weakness or Realism in Foreign Policy?

The crisis in Ukraine is being seen as a test of Obama’s foreign policy. Critics are accusing the U.S. president of weakening American power. But Obama and his supporters argue that his approach has enhanced diplomacy. 

Does the Obama administration’s foreign policy reflect weakness or realism about the limits to U.S. influence in international affairs?

Ali Wyne, an associate at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, suggested this forum.

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