Debate Transcript: Obama's foreign policy is a gift to America's enemies

ZEINAB BADAWI
Hello, welcome to Central Hall, Westminster, here in London. Where an audience of several hundred have gathered to debate tonight’s motion, ‘Obama’s Foreign Policy is a gift to America’s enemies’. Well, President Obama is almost halfway through his first term as President and when he took office he promised a major change from the eight years under George W. Bush. He said he wanted to extend the hand of friendship to the Muslim world, including Iran, to seek a strategic partnership with Russia and China, close Guantanamo. All in all he said he wanted to seek a path of cooperation and engagement rather than just military might. His critics say this has empowered America’s enemies and created greater instability. His supporters say it has made both America and the World a safer place. Who is right? Well, we have six speakers from Europe and America who are going to try to persuade the audience here, and you at home, to either support or oppose the motion, ‘Obama’s Foreign Policy is a gift to America’s enemies’.

Arguing for the motion; Bill Kristol, conservative commentator and Editor of the Weekly Standard, Jack Keane, retired four star General and a key architect of President Bush’s military surge in Iraq, and Con Coughlin, Executive Foreign Editor of Britain’s Daily Telegraph newspaper and an expert on terrorism.

And against the motion; Simon Schama, eminent historian, author and authority on American Foreign Policy, Philip Bobbitt, author of ‘Terror and Consent: Wars for the 21st Century’, and Bernard-Henri Levy, France’s best known philosopher - that’s our panel, welcome to you all.

Alright, so let’s hear the panellists’ opening statements, kicking off for us, for the motion ‘Obama’s Foreign Policy is a gift to America’s enemies’, Bill Kristol who, as well as editing the Weekly Standard, is also a commentator on Fox News in the United States and he’s served in a number of Republican administrations in Washington. Your time starts now Bill Kristol.

BILL KRISTOL

Well thank you Zeinab. It’s a great pleasure to be here in London, a great pleasure to be at an Intelligence Squared event again. It’s an honour to appear with, my colleagues on the correct side of the proposition: Jack Keane, a man I’ve known well and very much admire for his service to our country, to actually both of our countries and to other countries around the world - in the US, I’m afraid it’s 37 years in the US military. Con Coughlin, who I’ve admired from afar for his reporting from war-zones and he’s recently been to Afghanistan and Pakistan, which I’m sure he’ll talk about.
I don’t feel I have a very hi-heavy burden since I have Jack and Con on my side but it’s also a great pleasure to appear with such worthy adversaries, if I, can I use that term in the age of Obama? Maybe partners I should say?

You know, potential partners, to whom I should be particularly nice I suppose, nicer than to my own colleagues on my side. But, in any case, it’s a daunting, it’s daunting to debate, two professors, Professors Bobbitt and Schama who are so well known for their erudition and their eloquence. And then of course, Bernard-Henri Levy, so famous for always finding the ‘mots justes’ one might say.
I don’t really think our side can win this debate against these rhetorical masters. But we will have to do our best, do not despair, we will, I at least will. I’ll speak prose and let them speak poetry. But politics is, in some ways the realm of prose – facts matter more than speeches, deeds matter more than wishes, and reality matters more than hopes. And we all had high hopes. I had high hopes when President Obama became President. He wasn’t my preferred candidate but I obviously wished him well, and wish him well for the sake of the country - especially in foreign policy, where we only have one President, one foreign policy. Unfortunately the hopes I had, that he would execute a strong and responsible and impressive foreign policy, I think have been mostly dashed, or are being mostly dashed. President Obama has been mugged by reality, one might say, around the world. And the bad news is I don’t think, at least yet, he has adjusted to the realities he faces. Perhaps he will, I hope he will, I very much hope he will.

My thesis is simple, the World is less safe today, unfortunately, than it was sixteen, seventeen months ago when President Obama was inaugurated. The democracies are less strong than they were then, and America in particular I think is less of a force for good in the world and America’s allies have been weakened partly because, unfortunately, of America’s policies. I wish this were not so, and as I say I wish this would.

One area where I think I, where I’ve supported President Obama, mostly, is in Afghanistan and Iraq where, in Iraq, he’s more or less continued the previous administration’s policies and resisted attempts to pull out in a precipitant way somewhat against the tenor of his own campaign and against his votes (obviously) in the Senate 2007 and 2008. But more power to him to adjust in a responsible direction. In Afghanistan, he did courageously I think, announce an increase of troops, a necessary increase, to try to replicate as much as possible the reasonable success of Iraq after the surge, with a new policy under the same commander, ultimately a General Dave Petraeus – a very close friend and colleague of-of General Keane in Afghanistan.

Even there, I want to say a word about, I just, I would feel, I would feel it inappropriate to speak here in London about Iraq and Afghanistan and not pay tribute and say, just as a personal matter, how much I respect and appreciate the sacrifice of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces in those two theatres of war. The United Kingdom has lost, I think, 287 people in Afghanistan and 179 in Iraq, we have lost more troops but actually not proportionally more, proportionally fewer – in Afghanistan at least. So I want to pay tribute to those soldiers and marines here in-in London.

Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, the President in Iraq, by announcing a sort of arbitrary deadline for when we can get down to a certain troop level and, as of now at least, intending to get all troops out by the end of 2011. In Afghanistan by announcing that the surge will end and a reduction in force will begin in the summer of 2011. I think the President has hurt his own chances of success and our own chances of success. People in Pakistan and Afghanistan have the sense that we’re not there to stay. Setting a deadline which is simply arbitrary and has nothing to do with conditions on the ground is always unwise in a war. It was unnecessary in this case, there was no political reason President Obama had to do this it was an unforced error. It’s one I hope we do not pay a high price for in Afghanistan, but I fear that we will, I fear that we are already. The people don’t believe we’re there to stay, General McChrystal’s strategy and tactics have to be adjusted because he has such a short time-frame in which to achieve what General Petraeus and General [unknown] were able to achieve in Iraq. So even in Iraq and Afghanistan which I think have been where President Obama has tried to be responsible I think he has made errors that have damaged our prospects.

With respect to Iran, President Obama, with much fanfare, announced a policy of engagement. I think everyone agrees that that has failed. Iran is closer to acquiring nuclear weapons. This Iranian regime is closer to acquiring nuclear weapons than it was sixteen months ago. President Bush didn’t have a very successful policy vis-a-vie Iran either, but of course that’s no excuse for President Obama – the whole point of the Obama administration was to improve on the Bush administration, and here I think it’s actually gone in the other direction.

The-the emphasis on engagement meant that we did not support the green movement after the summer elections were stolen and there was a real chance, I think, to weaken the regime and to help the  Iranian people. We were strangely, and really, I think, embarrassingly and shamefully mute as the Iranian people took to the street to try to achieve greater liberties. The Obama administration will say ‘Well, Iran is isolated’, but in fact it’s less isolated now than it was sixteen months ago. Just recently the President of Iran stood with the Presidents of Brazil and Turkey and had a nice discussion about how the Brazilians and the Turks were going to help the Iranians avoid sanctions, luckily Europe and the US were able to sustain the move for sanctions. But already weak sanctions were weakened even more to accommodate the Russians and Chinese – that’s something that was made possible by the Turks and the Brazilians giving sucker to the Iranians. And these are two allies. Turkey is a NATO ally, Brazil is a huge country in Latin America – both of those President Obama has made personal efforts to reach out to. What was the claim of the Obama administration – he, unlike Bush, could win over these reluctant allies, win over these third world countries. He had credibility, that’s why he gave the Cairo speech, that’s why he has gone out of his way to not have that Bush attitude towards the rest of the world – and here we are embarrassed really, by Brazil and Turkey. And real damage, real damage was done to the effort to contain, contain and stop the nuclear program of this very dangerous regime.

In general, the dictators are stronger. Putin is stronger. Chavez is stronger. China is not restraining North Korea. North Korea is more aggressive. I hate to say it, but the democracies seem to be in retreat. And the US, as the leader of the World democracies, has in a sense signalled weakness, which I’m afraid has emboldened the dictators and weakened the cause of freedom and democracy around the world. I hope a change changes, I very much hope the President changes his Foreign Policy. But for now, I’m afraid, it’s a failure.

ZEINAB BADAWI (19:09:26)
Bill, thank you so much. Okay, arguing against the motion, Simon Schama – Emmy award winning broadcaster, vocal critic of the Bush administration, an historian who’s latest book ‘Scribble, Scribble, Scribble’ is to be published shortly, and you can start speaking now instead of scribbling, Simon Schama time starts.

SIMON SCHAMA
Right, in one respect, I absolutely agree with, Bill Kristol. There’s one respect in which the democracies that we live in might be less safe than they were two years ago because of the extraordinary financial meltdown which was made possible by the years of shockingly feckless and reckless de-regulation favoured by the administration that Bill Kristol supported. Of which we all in this room are currently precarious victims.

I don’t know, were you all swayed by what Bill Kristol had to say? Maybe you were. In which case, I mean, it’s not too much of a low blow is it? But I do have to point out nonetheless, a low blow from me heaven forefend, I do have to point out that the two Vice-Presidents – one actually a Vice-President, one a Vice-Presidential possibility – whom Bill Kristol thought fabulously qualified to have their finger on the nuclear trigger were Dan Quail and Sarah Palin! Don’t retreat, reload Sarah Palin! How can you talk about an unsafe world now? Wow! If, God forbid, something had happened to John McCain we’d have President Palin, boy we’d all sleep safely in our beds wouldn’t we!

So, think about the great tradition of American foreign policy, you know the Atlantic Charter, Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points – although actually Clemenceau Bernard-Henri Lévy as  will remember said about Woodrow Wilson fourteen points are quatre plus qu’un bon Dieu – four more than good god. But nonetheless, there is a sort of real grandeur for the time of George Washington’s concern to balance American national interests with the peace of the world, Thomas Jefferson definitely losing sleep over the same thing.

To the point where we have asked about her foreign policy credentials, and this is not insignificant, it’s not a low blow, it is the kind of bone-headed certainty of American exceptionalism which the Obama presidency is trying to repudiate. Sarah Palin said of course famously she lives next door to Russia, Alaska is next door to Russia and, quote ‘When Putin rears his head, he goes into Alaskan airspace’, of which Sarah Palin, of course, has a lot. ‘When he comes into our airspace, it is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation’. Wow! That’s right up there with Woodrow Wilson and FDR.

Now, why should you all care about whether or not Obama’s foreign policy is a gift to America? You should, in my view, care. You should care that we have a genuine common stake in the fate and future of the amer-dema-democratic experiment. When was it most in jeopardy? When was America most hated? When were the strains of doing good things – getting the coalition together in Afghanistan – most jeopardised? Well of course during the extraordinary excellent adventure of the war in Iraq. A war which William Kristol and his fellow neo-conservatives thought essentially would be, if not a cakewalk, and Bill Kristol was very good actually about saying there aren’t enough troops – wow, you can say that again! That wasn’t the point! It was a war launched by an administration allergic to nation building, in a place that made no sense to set off the war in the first place if you weren’t going to supply some infrastructure – like electricity, like a bit of oil! Gee, we’re in Iraq, be nice if the Iraqis who we liberated actually got a little bit of their own oil. It’s not too much to say, we’re talking about greatest gift to America’s enemies. The greatest gift to the enemies of America was the eight year fiasco, a masterpiece of ineptitude, calamity and arrogance that was the administration of George W. Bush.

Obama is sometimes represented, and he hasn’t been so represented which I’m grateful by William Kristol, as some remote lofty intellectual. In one respect I think he is – I wish he’d put the gloves on when he has to do domestic politics, but he is not that. It’s said by conservative commentators sometimes - certainly Sarah Palin says this - it’s said sometimes that he goes round apologising for America. No he does not. Read the speech in Cairo where he actually specifically took the Islamic world to task, he took the Western world to task for stereotypes about Islam, but he said he wanted the Islamic world to recognise there are crude stereotypes about America, America has been the source of some of the greatest progress for mankind. That’s not apologising for America.
Read the Oslo speech, it’s not the speech of someone an effete would-be professor, he says we have to deal with the world as it is – it’s a very pragmatic, tough, realistic speech. Negotiations would not have stopped Hitler he says, absolutely correctly, nor will they stop Osama Bin Laden. A belief in peace is seldom enough to actually ensure it. These are the remarks and the policy that flows from (that is, the attempt of) someone who is actually a pragmatist. But you have to be a pragmatist in certain ways that can deliver results. You have to do it multi-laterally, that’s the meaning of Obama’s approach.

You can’t conceivably deal eventually with Afghanistan or Iran without having some understanding with Russia and that understanding has produced a reduction in nuclear weapon stockpiles. But more importantly, it’s put Russia in a position where they actually might, I don’t say they’ve delivered yet, they might actually be a good broker in respect of both Iran and Afghanistan. It’s true, it’s bloody tough working with the Chinese. Basically the Chinese imperiums’ idea, as we saw in Copenhagen, was you know ‘rest of the world ecologically drop dead’ so I don’t pretend it’s particularly easy. But it was again during the Bush years apropos of North Korea, the isolation of Korea meant that, you know, the crazy tyrants who run that ghastly country and North Korea pursued unstoppably their program in-in nuclear weapons. We have to do this with the figures that strategically can count.

The problem we have now is that we’re fighting a new war with old weapons. It may be a little bit in Korea, but it’s not about defeating massed battalions and regiments of soldiers. It is really now about civilians, that’s the way you win! You don’t, in America saying ‘we’re not winning, we’re not winning’, both sides of politics kept saying that during the election campaign. Winning is not defined any longer by the complete annihilation of an enemy, an army, the unconditional surrender. That’s not the way the Taliban works. Jihadi is ultimately asymmetrical warfare. You can’t sort of have, as Philip Bobbitt says in his book, a victory parade. It’s about the protection of civilians, their hearts and minds. Ours and theirs. Their cities, our cities, our bank accounts, our ecology. The walk on extras in battlefield, the civilians have been the place where we will win or lose the war against the jihad.

Who is the enemy now? Who are enemies? Disgusting, morally repellent, theocratic tyrants. On this, I suspect, the proponents of the motion and I do not disagree. How’re we truly going to achieve victory? We’re going to do it, goodness me, in a way that honours the origins of the American Revolution. Why was the American Revolution fought? For the security of colonial America against the coercive power of the Redcoats. It was fought for an idea, that’s in the battlefield of ideas that will either win or lose. You won’t find conservatives very often saying, talking much about ideas that we are fighting in Afghanistan against an enemy that hates, hates educated women. We are fighting a war for the American tradition of religious pluralism, embodied by Thomas Jefferson, the figure who has just been deleted from Texas social studies curriculum books because gee, goodness, he didn’t believe Jesus was divine. Jefferson said ‘Truth will prevail if left to herself’, that’s the flag. The flag of pluralist toleration and freedom we need to run up the flagpole. And America and the rest of the West will be more secure and more full of their own self respect as a result. That would be victory. The victory of toleration over fanaticism.

ZEINAB BADAWI

Well Simon Schama, thank you very much for your very energetic arguments against the motion. Now for the motion, General Jack Keane served for more than 30 years in the US military in a career culminating in his role as acting Chief of Staff of the US Army. General Keane, your time starts now.

GENERAL JACK KEANE

Well hello everyone. Thank you for coming, good to see such a great crowd. I know we’re standing on a stage here, it encourages theatrical performances – we just got one. And I’m a more serious guy, alright, I’m a military guy, I’m pretty serious, I’m gonna deal with facts and less with theatrics.

My mother was born in this great city and she emigrated to America prior to World War II with her mother and father and, and two brothers and her sister. So I draw great heritage, great lineage, and great love and affection for this marvellous country and for this great city. And I also want to tell you, as a soldier all my life, and very much involved in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - even as a retired soldier - how much we truly appreciate the sacrifice this country has made, how it has stepped forward to stop the bullies and thugs in the world from imposing their will on others. And have done that at dear expense of life and treasure in this country. We truly applaud you for your moral courage and for the physical courage of your marvellous troops.

I’m here with distinguished colleagues, to be sure, and the subject is interesting and important. I fundamentally believe that in sixteen months our foreign policy in the United States it’s weak, it’s defensive, often at times it’s apologetic and it forces our allies to wonder: is the United States going to be able to be relied on like they were in the past? It encourages our adversaries, who are not stopped by words or good will. I’m not suggesting that we should be threatening or using military force, quite the contrary, many of us who’ve worn a uniform usually argue against it unless there is no other course of action.

But let’s get to some specifics. Afghanistan for example. The President of the United States has done a right thing, in my judgement, in committing to a military counter-offensive, commonly referred to as a surge because it means increasing forces. Simultaneously, he committed to a timetable of a reduction and the beginning of a withdrawal of those forces. Now let’s just use some common sense here. A military counter-offensive was the Normandy invasion into Europe. Can you imagine, leaders at that day, who were conducting that invasion saying ‘we’re going to start withdrawing in 18 months’? Can you imagine, after Pearl Harbour, when we began the island-hopping campaign to regain the Pacific telling the world and the Japanese that we’re only going to fight for 18 months and we’re gonna begin the  withdrawal? What has that done to that region of the world? The huge elephant in the room is that that policy makes our friends and allies, the Pakistanis and the other countries in the region sceptical about the seriousness and commitment of our policy in Afghanistan, that is a result. That’s the reality of it.Does it encourage our adversaries? It speaks for itself. If you’re a Taliban leader and you already know there’s political will problems with the war in Afghanistan in the coalition countries – in the UK and the United States – all they have to do is wait. And eventually the Americans and the United Kingdom will leave because we have already announced a timetable.

Iran, one year plus now, of a policy of engagement, a policy of words using unconditional diplomacy; the results? None. Not one iota of change by the Iranian government, marching forward towards nuclear weapons. That is the rat-reality of it. We’re trying to cobble a coalition of nations together to put on the table some sanctions. And when you take a close look at those sanctions, they are weak and they are ineffectual. Prediction? No results, the Iranians will continue to march towards nuclear weapons.

Will the world be a dangerous place, a more dangerous place with a rogue nation, like Iran with nuclear weapons? You know the answer as well as I do. Absolutely yes. Radical Islam, Jihadist extremism, Islamic fascism – call it what you may, we all know what it is. The President of the United States refuses to name it, he refuses to define it, he refuses to use the term. Can you imagine Winston Churchill in this town, in this city, during World War II refusing to identify fascism for the hell that it really was? Refusing to identify it and define it in terms of the threat it was to Europe and the threat it was to mankind? That is an absurdity.

Anybody that studies and strategises how to deal with an enemy, the first thing you must do is define your enemy. And understand and communicate what that is to the people. And we’re incapable of doing it. Radical Islam is an ideology that joins people together based on ideas. What is going to defeat radical Islam is not guns and bullets. What is going to defeat them is the ideology of democracy and capitalism and that’s what they fear the most. And that is why their opponent is the United Kingdom, and that is why their opponent is the United States of America, because we propagate those major ideas in the world. And yet we refuse to identify it as an ideology that is joined together based on a big idea. As a result of that, we’re weaker for it, in terms of execution.

Iraq: the administration emphasises, in Iraq, reduction of forces. What’s needed in Iraq is not just the reduction of forces in the end of the military campaign. And Iraq is in pretty good shape. What the Iraqis need, now listen to this, 22 Arab Muslim countries in the world, only 1 of them elects its government – it’s Iraq. That is a fledgling democracy. They need encouragement, they need to be strengthened by us. They want a long term strategic partnership and relationship with the United States of America as their number one ally. They want economic, diplomatic, educational, social and scientific relationship with us like a normal ally. We have to strengthen that democracy. They have choices, one of their choices is East, and that’s Iran. Iraq is a buffer against the Iranians.

So the ledger is this, the ledger is simply that North Korea today is as defiant as it has ever been – given recent events, you know that as well as I do. The Iranians are marching towards nuclear weapons, and they will be there in two to three years, and the policy that we have today is not going to stop that. The Russians are up to great mischief in the world as they try to re-emerge and regain the world stage, and they have truncated every effort that we have made to try to co-operate and collaborate with them for a common good. That is the ledger that we face. The reality is, the proposition as stated is catering to our enemies, and it is creating huge frustration and a lack of confidence in America with our allies. Thank you.

ZEINAB BADAWI

General Jack Keane, I thank you. Now arguing against the motion, is Philip Bobbitt. He’s considered a leading constitutional scholar, one of America’s leading authorities on conflict in the 21st Century, and Philip Bobbitt your time starts now.

PHILIP BOBBITT

I want to address two issues. Obama’s view of strategy and his view about law. And I will conclude that it is the relationship between these attitudes that will answer the question we have posed tonight. First, I will contend that Obama’s strategy is wiser, not weaker, because it is embedded in our allies’ interest and outlooks. Second, I will argue that the rule of law is appreciated by this administration as never before in the wars on terror, and it is more effective for that reason.

The White House will soon release the new Nation Security Strategy, it recognises that we are at war, but it recognises that there are two consumers of America’s declarations on such matters - our friends and our enemies. The Bush administration only seemed to address one. This was an elementary error. In the first place, the US is not so powerful that it can succeed in the wars against terror without allies, and indeed without sympathetic publics abroad. Strategy is not a popularity contest, that’s true. But neither is it a suitable enterprise for the self-centred.

In the wars on terror, as in the Cold War, every measure the US takes to confront its enemies must be done in a way that strengthens its friendships. Thus, how we do the things we do is as important as what we do. By these criteria, how is the Obama administration doing? North Korea, Iran, posed intractable problems, it is tempting to speculate that a tougher confrontational pose would turn them around. But we have an actual experiment in this to rely upon. The Bush administration’s confrontational rhetoric in eight years did nothing to improve either of these problems, indeed they grew worse daily.   

What Obama is doing is showing the world that confrontation is the option that is least attractive to us, and only this will support us if a stronger response is someday required. What about in Iraq? Obama campaigned against the war there and yet I think it is he who has salvaged our intervention. That’s because we faced in Iraq a complete collapse of domestic public support.

In Iraq the only way to prevent a Vietnam-like panicky withdrawal, which was exactly where we were headed, was to reaffirm the US withdrawal agreement and set a deadline. The surge itself, something I supported and for which we should honour General Keane among others, the surge itself was not enough. If we focus to narrowly on the combat aspects of strategy we run the risk that our domestic politics will rob us of victories we have won in the field. General Keane asked ‘why set a deadline for withdrawal? It will only encourage the Taliban’ he says ‘to wait because eventually we will leave’. Well of course eventually we will leave, no one thinks that we should stay forever. The question is whether or not the impressions of the Taliban are the only things we have to worry about? Or whether they are the most important things to worry about in the strategic positions of the free states?

Similarly, in Afghanistan, the only way to get a surge in the first place was to convince the US public and our allied partners that The White House really had considered every other option. While many have been impatient for action, this period delivered what a simple decision could not – it delivered the political support of the American people. And I doubt that any other political leader could have doubled US troops as successfully.

United States has friends in every country, in every parliament, in every foreign ministry and military. A President who is admired and respected makes their politics more attractive. The Pew research surveys give us a good idea of how US standing is faring under Obama. Let me just cite two statistics. When asked whether they were confident that the US would do the right thing in world affairs the following numbers said yes under George Bush in 2008 and then yes under Obama in 2009: In Britain the number went from 16% to 86%, in France from 19% to 91%, in Germany from 14% to 93%, in Japan from 25% to 85%. In France and Germany Obama’s confidence ratings exceed those of any domestic political leader in those two countries. So, if we were to ask the public the question we are debating tonight they would reply that Obama has been a gift to our friends.

The second statistic from the Pew surveys shows that while the percentage of persons among US allies favouring American anti-terror policies steadily declined from 2002 to 2007, the latest survey now show majorities of Western Europeans approving US efforts for the first time since 2002. President Obama’s change of strategy in the wars on terror is as important as General Petraeus’ change of strategy in Iraq, for which we must also thank General Keane. But this hasn’t been obvious to everyone so I want to finish just by focusing on this.

Some from the previous administration have charged that Obama has left the country at greater risk and others claim that he is simply, in fact, continuing the Bush administration’s policies. But the President’s critics from the left and the right are really missing the point. Bush and Cheney refused to go to Congress for authorisation to intercept foreign communications without a warrant, it was enough for them to conclude that the existing statutory framework was outmoded, as it was, and they could ignore it. They refused to seek statutory authority for prevented detentions, that was the point of going off-shore to Guantanamo, where they thought a habeas corpus free zone could be created. They stripped military commissions of the very legal protections that their own panel had recommended. In all these decisions they kicked away the essential support of law for our efforts.

What Obama is doing is precisely the opposite, seeking law reform in order to strengthen the war effort. We saw an example only last week when the Attorney General proposed statutory authority to delimit Miranda warnings – these are warnings given to a criminal suspect – when a terrorist was arrested. The reason this is important is because of what we are fighting for in our wars on terror. In Afghanistan, in Iraq and throughout the world, what we are fighting for is the rule of law. Thus, General Rupert Smith said ‘to operate tactically, outside the law is to attack one’s own war aim’. The war aim in a war against terror is not the seizure of territory or access to resources and it is not the conversion to any ideology or political way of life. It is, as my colleague said, the protection of civilians.

This means not only that our war strategy must conform to law, but that law must be reformed to take account of the strategic context. We cannot have one without the other. There’s nothing wrong, in principal, with military commissions so long as they have the kinds of legal safeguards proposed by President Obama. There is, on the other hand, something very wrong with torture, in principal – not simply because it violates our laws, but because freedom of torture goes to the very heart, the very constitutional basis of our laws in America. Obama’s foreign policy is not a gift to our enemies, it’s not a gift really to anyone. It is something America’s friends, our friends abroad, have earned and have waited for.

ZEINAB BADAWI

Philip Bobbitt, thank you very much - a rare species, a speaker who actually finishes bang on time, thank you very much. And arguing for the motion, I see he’s already in the launch pad, Con Coughlin is renowned for his work as the Executive Foreign Editor of the Daily Telegraph here in the UK, he’s also an expert on defence and author of numerous books, the latest being ‘Khomeini’s Ghost’. Con, your time starts now.

CON COUGHLIN

Thank you very much Zeinab. It’s great to be here for this debate. I can see an element of humbug has already infiltrated this very challenging issue. It was interesting to hear Phil Bobbitt talking about how President Obama is reaching, stretching, arching for the moral high ground, particularly on legal matters. Can I just remind him that President Obama has abandoned his plans to close the Guantanamo detention facility after discovering that some of the inmates who’d been released then made their way to Yemen and instituted a new brand of Al Qaeda which of course was directly involved in the Detroit bomb plot at Christmas. So that’s one thing. I’d just like to address my former tutor, Simon Schama. I should declare an interest here, many years ago as an undergraduate at Oxford I had the great pleasure of being taught by Simon and I owe him a great debt for getting me my degree and putting me on the path to being a foreign correspondent. I should also say that I often found his tour-de-force in the tutorials rather bemusing, as I did today. And rather, I’m afraid to say, rather than his next book being called ‘Scribble, Scribble, Scribble’ perhaps it should be ‘Dribble, Dribble, Dribble’ because my dear former professor failed to address the motion here. This motion is about Obama’s foreign policy not how much we detest George Bush or Sarah Palin.

Now I spend most of my career at what I would call the cold face of Obama’s policies around the world. As Zeinab mentioned earlier I’ve recently been to Afghanistan and I’ve recently been to Pakistan and I’ve recently been to the Gulf and I’ve seen first-hand what Obama’s policies, the subject of this debate tonight, are all about.
And I should start by saying that I started my involvement with Barrack Obama two years ago in the Wild West of America. I went to a rally he held in the Mid-West one very cold February night. And what amazed me, I’ve covered many political rallies in America over the years, but the size of the audience, people, cowhands, cowgirls, farmers, truckers, the ne’er-do-wells, they all turned out in their thousands to see this man and he shone like a brilliant light in the Mid-Western desert. But what did he say? He didn’t say very much. He said ‘Americans, together we are wonderful’, ‘Americans we can change the world’, ‘Americans vote for me and the world will be beautiful, we’ll all run down the yellow brick road’. That’s President Barrack Obama as a candidate. And now we see him as a President, and I’m afraid it hasn’t changed very much.

The moment he became President we had the Cairo speech that various debaters have alluded to. What has that speech actually achieved? He got up, he declared to the Islamic world ‘America wants to be your friend, come and embrace us, let bygones be bygones’. He also gave the state of Israel, one of America’s greatest friends in the region a gratuitous kicking and demanded that it stop all its settlement activities, stop this, stop that, unconditionally. What’s happened in the past year? We’ve had a resounding silence from the Arabs, surprise, surprise for any of us who follow these events for the last 30 or so years. And it’d driven Israel further into a corner where, just out of sheer bloody mindedness, and to upset the Obama administration, they’re now building settlements in east Jerusalem. So the Cairo speech was hardly a triumph, nor was the Oslo speech let us not forget. What did Obama get at Oslo in the Climate Change talks? Absolutely  nothing. He rode in there like the great messiah – fresh from collecting his Nobel Peace Prize, what was that for by the way? and achieved nothing. Or I think they could say in America ‘diddley-shit’.

So, having having set up my stall on where I think Obama is coming from, I think it’s only fair to, sort of, move on to Obama and what he’s doing to the world that we actually live in. Because people say I’m a hawk, in fact I’m a realist. I travel the world, I see what’s going on and I make my mind up. And what I see going on around the world is not very attractive.

For example, let’s take Afghanistan. Now as we’ve alluded to earlier in the debate, Obama is to be applauded. Reluctantly, and after great deliberation, and procrastination, he agreed to a military surge in Afghanistan. But he did say it with a very heavy heart, and he tied the hands of the soldiers he sent to Afghanistan behind their backs before they even got on a plane. He said he wants to withdraw the troops by June 2011. Now, you talk to any commander, any diplomat, any politician with any knowledge of this subject, and they will tell you it will take five years, minimum, to turn this round. It cannot be done by July 2011. Right, you say, well how do you know? Well I was in Afghanistan and one of the particular things that we are trying very hard to do is to persuade the Taliban to lay down their weapons and to engage in a political process. There is currently to be a loya jerga, a grand council, of all the Afghans to try and rehabilitate people who support the Taliban who previously didn’t  try and get political progress.

Now this is something you would think Obama, with all his wonderful magic, would support. But he’s completely pulled the rug from under this very important dynamic in Afghanistan by saying that he wants American troops to start leaving in 18 months time. Now any, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out that any self respecting Taliban leader is going to say ‘well why on earth should I put down my weapons, engage in a political reconciliation process when these Yankees are going off home again?’ And let’s not forget, we have a very sorry history in Afghanistan. In 1989 after we helped the Afghans to get rid of the Soviets, we left them. We did it again in 2001. I’m no apologist for the Bush administration when it comes to Afghanistan, we left them high and dry. They, quite rightly, think we’re going to do the same again and dear old President Obama has played right into their hands. And this matters because today two British soldiers, another two British soldiers, lost their lives in Afghanistan. American soldiers, Canadian soldiers, Dutch soldiers are dying on a regular basis because of the follies of his policy.

And let me move on to Iran, another of my favourite subjects. Obama came to office and said to the Iranians ‘unclench your fist and I will be your friend’. He wanted to tear up thirty years of hostility on the part if the Iranian regime, not just to United States but to the West. I was a young correspondent in Beirut in the 1980’s when the Iranians kidnapped all my friends – Terry Waite, John McCarthy, Brian Keenan – I’d see them for breakfast one morning and the next they were gone. This, and to believe that the Iranians are about to change their tune, again is pie in the sky. You look at the people leading the reform movement in Iran, like Mir-Hossein-Mousavi, and these are people who are knee deep in the blood of the Iranian revolution.

I’m running out of time, I’m giving you two tangible examples of why Obama’s foreign policy, the subject of this debate, I’m sorry I labour the point, is not working. The Iranians, having procrastinated on a very good deal offered by the Americans in Geneva last year, have done this very, very dubious deal with Turkey – the key point to this deal is that they continue to enrich uranium, uranium that can be used to build nuclear bombs. They have also retained a significant stockpile of the enriched uranium they already have, which will give them the ability to build nuclear bombs.
I’m afraid I have to stop here because time is running out, you can see where I’m going, for that reason I would commend this house to support this resolution that Obama’s foreign policy plays into the hands of America’s, and our, enemies. Thank you very much.

ZEINAB BADAWI

Thank you very much Con Coughlin. And, finally, against the motion, Bernard-Henri Levy is a man of many parts, philosopher, author, film-maker, novelist and he was recently ranked as one of the 30 most influential thinkers in the world. Start trying to influence us now Bernard-Henri Levy, thank you.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY

Thank you very much. My opinion will hold in a single word, or maybe a very simple declaration; my feeling, my belief is that President Obama is a little Chinese. I know that the situation is already slightly complicated, he’s the first native President of America, part of his family comes from Kenya and so on. But, moreover, I believe that the part of him is a little Chinese, and saying that, I mean that the main source of inspiration of his foreign policy – when you say foreign policy you mean enemies, when you say enemies you mean war, when you mean war you mean act of war. My feeling is that his main source of inspiration is a very old book, written by a Chinese General of the 6th Century before Christ called Sun Tzu, who was a General in the service of Emporor Helu of the kingdom of Wu, who was one of the best, most dangerous strategists of the history of the world.

And I would like to develop this very quickly. The three first announcement of Obama, his threes-his three first refusals. Refusals of the preventive war. The idea toward Iran to re-open the compass, not excluding the war, but not excluding sanctions - which is refusal to go directly to the extremes. And the refusal of the quagmire in Afghanistan and in Iraq - the decision to put a sort of schedule for the retreat of the troops. These three refusals, are the three basis of the strategy of Sun Tzu. About preventive war he said ‘well you are not sure to submit your enemy, better to submit him by negotiation than by war’. The idea not to go to the extremes, contrary of Clauswitz is again a principal, a very famous principal, of Sun Tzu; ‘Don’t undertake any mediatory enterprise unless you are absolutely sure to finish and to go to the end. And, about the quagmire, a very famous quote of Sun Tzu saying that ‘the wars are like a fire, like a bonfire, and when you don’t know how to put arms off, when you don’t imagine that you should at the time, even if the time is delayed, put the weapons down you will be burned by your own weapons like by fire’.
The three first refusals of Obama are inspired form Sun Tzu. If you read Sun Tzu a little carefully, as I did, in my far away youth, I was very fond of China, therefore of Sun Tzu, you know also that they strategy of Sun Tzu is based on what he calls the three great ruses, le trois ruses, the three ruses of Sun Tzu.

First ruse is to fight and to kill with as often as possible, with the sword of the others. It is the definition of Obama’s multi-lateralism, not to have on the shoulders of only America all the burden of the war against the enemies. Second ruse of Sun Tzu, to encircle them in order to save thou, which is one of the bases of the policy of Barrack Obama in the Middle East. And the third principal, the third ruse, when the enemy is one, says Sun Tzu, try to divide him. It is exactly what Obama did in the famous speech of Cairo, where he said the Muslim world is not a block, if there is today one clash of civilisation it is not between Islam and the West – it is inside Islam, between Islam and Islam, between democratic forces and forces of fanaticism. It was the Sun Tzu principals saying that when an enemy is one you have to divide it into two.

Then Sun Tzu has also three strategic principals. First strategic principal, when you are not sure to defeat an enemy, try to have a good deal with him. It is exactly, I’m sorry, what Barrack Obama is trying to do, and does with certain success with China. Second strategic principal of Sun Tzu, try to index the resources which you devote to war to the resources of the real empire. Don’t wage war over your own means. Barrack Obama does exactly that, for the first time he is balancing or trying to balance or to link foreign policy and domestic policy. Solution to the crisis and operations on the ground. And third strategic principal of Sun Tzu - the best General is always the best informed in terms of intelligence: one of the first decisions of Barrack Obama. That’s why he’s a good warrior, was to reform the fading C.I.A. as you know. And that was not a bad strategic decision at all.

When you read Sun Tzu, you have also some moral principles. First moral principle: try to treat your prisoner as if it were your own soldiers. It is what he does when he speaks about Guantanamo, not renouncing to close but delaying the closing. Second moral principle of Sun Tzu: prevent the villages and the cottages of the enemy to be burned. This is the strategy of McChrystal in Afghanistan. And the third one: to know your enemy as much as you know yourself . Maybe he does not speak about fascism Islam General Keane, but he knows the enemy and when he says for the first time that the real enemy, while you have some weapon of mass destruction, is not Iraq but Pakistan, he knows the enemy and to know the enemy is the first principle of a real war. For all these reasons, I vote no against the resolution. I think that Barrack Obama is not a gift to the en- our enemies, but is a poison to our enemies and the most efficient of all poisons – which are the Chinese poisons. Eight minutes! Thank you
 
ZEINAB BADAWI

Thank you very much Bernard-Henri Levy. So, we’ve heard from our speakers, now it’s the turn of our audience. But before we do that, I should tell you that, as our audience here at Central Hall, Westminster in London, were coming in at the start of this debate we asked them to vote to see where they stood on the motion, ‘Obama’s Foreign Policy is a gift to America’s enemies’. And let me tell you this is how they decided to vote; so for the motion 297, against the motion – that’s those on my left – 561, however, hang on, the undecided are 458. So don’t lose hope, there’s still all to play for. So, a huge number of you there undecided. Alright,  now members of the audience are going to be polled again at the end of this debate to see if  we’ve managed to shift opinions here. And just before we go to the floor I should remind you that if you want a free briefing of the issues being debated here then go to www.intelligencesquared.com and just follow the instructions.

Alright, so let’s have some questions from our audience. Please do introduce yourself and your organisation if relevant. So, and may I also ask you please, in the interest of democracy to keep your questions or comments brief and to the point, and try to avoid repeating something which somebody has already raised. I’ll take a collection and then we’ll hear from our panel.

So, can I see hands please. Who wants to speak?. Alright, our first speaker. Question.

MAN 1 IN AUDIENCE
Hi, I’m James Lovegrove. I was wondering if Simon Schama would like to take the opportunity to, reply to his former student’s accusation?

ZEINAB BADAWI
You have to remind us about what that was but, I seem to remember it wasn’t very polite but there we go. Okay, do that very quickly then Simon Schama.

SIMON SCHAMA
Very quickly, that’s my middle name! Thing about old student Con was he always had, you know he always said I’m gonna give you the facts, which actually meant I haven’t actually read the assignment this week. Nor will I ever actually get the facts right. Notice, when he’s talked about Obama’s decision about Afghanistan, he changed the wording ‘cause he often used to say ‘Oh I obviously buggered it up, you know, the first reply’, Obama did not say we’re going to withdraw all troops in the summer of 2011. We are going to start transitioning the troops out - a huge difference! Ultimately, Afghanistan’s fate will be decided by the Afghans, not by an indefinite military occupation by the United States and its allies. And god knows, don’t we need to give Hamid Karzai and the government some incentive to get their house in order? One other thing, very quickly. Israeli settlements?! Building settlements was  actually a sort of attack against Obama? Give me a break for god’s sake! Look, don’t know how much of a family, Con, you have living in Israel, I’m Jewish, I’m a Zionist, I have family in Israel. I was thrilled at last to have an American President who said endless building of settlements is the most damaging thing you can do if you want the possibility of two nations side by side in Israel and Palestine.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Con Coughlin I feel just have to give you the right to reply – very briefly.

CON COUGHLIN
Yes, well of course, giving my essays to Simon was always a bit of a challenge. Having, listened to his tutorials and knowing his mindset, all I would say on the Israel point, the point I was trying to get across is that Obama’s insult to Israel was gratuitous by choosing the one issue he knew that the Israelis were on very weak ground. He didn’t  make any similar kinds of impositions on the Palestinians or on indeed the Arabs. It was very much an open door as he’s done to Iran. And when you’re dealing with these kinds of hard line regimes, look at what Hamas does to the Palestinian people in Gaza, let alone what the Israelis do to them. When you look at these kinds of threats, give it, and Dave Cameron’s at it now, you know, ‘let’s let’s hug Al Qaeda, let’s hug a hoodie’, it doesn’t really get you anywhere. And hugging the likes of Iran, which the American President tries to do, in my view is not going to make this world a safer place.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay, thanks. So let’s take more questions from the audience.

MAN 2 IN AUDIENCE
I have a question about the Pew opinion polls, and America’s allies in Europe and Japan and the changed attitudes towards America. I’d like to ask someone on the proposition, perhaps General Keane, to address if these changed views about America under Obama can actually be used to help allied governments contribute more towards joint security efforts – if it actually makes a difference? Thank you very much.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Well, thank you. I’ll take another question.

MAN 3 IN AUDIENCE
Simon Schama suggested that Obama’s goodwill in concessions to the Russians over, for example nuclear weapons and the missile shield, would be likely to bring Russian concessions over Iran. Given that Russia only supports the most diluted and ineffective sanctions against Iran, and is I believe continuing to build the Bushehr nuclear reactor, how on earth can this be a good negotiating strategy on Obama’s part?

ZEINAB BADAWI
Can I ask, are there any females who wish to speak?
I’m sorry to show some bias, but I feel it is in order. There’s the lady right here in the red jersey, thank you. It’s getting a bit male, you know, sorry chaps.

WOMAN 1 IN AUDIENCE
Thanks. I know you’ve already touched on Israel’s foreign policy, on Obama’s foreign policy to Israel, but surely the people against the motion, surely Obama has not gone far enough in bringing about peace in the Middle-East, shouldn’t he show more support towards the Palestinians ‘cause shouldn’t that be at the heart of his foreign policy?

MAN 4 IN AUDIENCE (20:02:56)
Thank you. Bernard-Henri Levy, you gave us a very interesting lecture about Sun Tzu. Can you speculate what Sun Tzu ideology would have resulted in the Second World War and where Britain and the United States would be today had Sun Tzu been implemented?

ZEINAB BADAWI
That sounds rather retrospective but BHL maybe you could just deal with that last point very, very quickly and then we’ll pick up the other questions.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY
I’m sure that Sun Tzu would have strongly advised from 1973 to 1933 I’m sorry, to 1938, and maybe before ’33 to take very strong care about the disaster which was rising up in the European and World landscape. Sun Tzu would have probably invited the democracies to take the real measure of what was preparing to stop concessions, not to accept the fait accompli, not to accept Munich and so on. I think that Sun Tzu would have advised to use all the panel of possible means ranging from policy to war, in order to prevent this absolute evil which was the rise of Hitler, then his installation of power and then his absolutely irresistible war against, against the world.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay, thank you.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY
About Israel...About Israel...

ZEINAB BADAWI
Yep.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY
The point is, number one that Obama, it is a fact, is a friend of Israel. He has said it far before his election he is a friend of Israel and he might be one of the President’s of America who knows best what Israel means. Not only strategically, but spiritually and philosophically – he’s a friend of Israel.
Number two, he’s one of the President’s of America who knows exactly what Hamas means, what it means to be bombed from Gaza everyday where you-when you are a citizen of the south of Israel and so on. He expressed himself on this topic many times before his elections and since.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Right...

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY
Number three...

ZEINAB BADAWI
Very quickly.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY
He believes that in order to have peace and security, Israel has to achieve a good agreement with the part of the Palestinian leadership which wants really peace.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay, thank you very much. I want to get a response, I think you’ve dealt partly also with the question about whether Obama should actually show more commitment towards the Palestinians. General Keane, there’s a, a question as to whether the perception of America internationally, whether that should encourage America’s allies to do more in helping the US achieve its objectives?

GENERAL JACK KEANE
You know the reality is President Obama is a very popular President, a very popular person in the United States and in the world at large, particularly in Europe. And so he’s also a very historic figure in terms of the significance of the United States with our first African-American President. But the facts are policies, the policies that he’s propagating I don’t think there’s a shred of evidence that it has moved our allies in a direction of having a united effort to deal in a better way with our adversaries. There’s no evidence to support that - there are words there, they sound good but they fall flat. That is the reality of what we’re dealing with here.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay. Do you want to come back on that this side? Maybe Philip Bobbitt and then you afterwards? Sorry, I’m trying to get to Philip briefly on that. It’s just talk, empty words.

PHILIP BOBBITT
Yes, you hear this theme over and over from our adversaries that this is all just a matter of poetry, it’s all a matter of just oratory. That the facts don’t show any real accomplishment by the President in the year he’s been in office. And nothing could be further from the truth. Take two theatres of combat in which General Keane has been most influential in the best possible way. Take Iraq and Afghanistan. Without Barrack Obama we would not be able to commit ourselves in either one of these theatres. Public support for these wars, in this country as well as in mine, was eroding so quickly in the last few months of the Bush administration we could never have maintained these forces. By isolating our sights to just the combat phase and forgetting the entire political stream that whirls around that phase, that determines the allocation of our resources, by forgetting all that, you can maintain this absurd fiction that he’s only an orator, that no facts count on his side of the ledger. And it is absurd.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay, Bill Kristol do you want to come in on this?  

BILL KRISTOL
It may sound absurd to Phil but no one has yet specified any results. I’m happy the American President is is more popular in Europe than the previous American President, that popularity should be taken advantage of. I’m happy this President talks more about soft power and smart power than the previous President, that soft power and smart power should be exercised deftly and for the common purposes, not just of our own, Americans, but of the European countries. Has it been? I see very little evidence of that, in fact there have been gratuitous insults to our allies. And incidentally, Europe isn’t the only part of the world. Talk to the democratically elected Indian government about whether they are as happy with the Obama administrations relative neglect of this incredibly important democratic partner, whether they’re as happy as with Obama as with Bush. The Cairo speech was very nice, have we done much to encourage democrats in Egypt? Talk to the members of the Green Movement, those really do believe in freedom of democracy in Iran, are they happy? With this President, this President who ran precisely on the fact that he could speak to decent people in the Muslim world who wanted change. To the democrats in Egypt right now, this is something Bernard-Henri Lévy cares about, do they feel that the United States Government, do they feel the Obama administration, do the Green Movement freedom fighters in Iran feel this administration stands with them or not? Bush may have been heavy handed in the way he spoke for democracy but at least he spoke for democracy.

ZEINAB BADAWI
But, I just have to ask you Bill Kristol, did Bush, did the Bush administration achieve anything on democratic change in Egypt? Last time we looked Hosni Mubarack was still President, three decades.

BILL KRISTOL
I, myself, would have pushed harder than the Bush administration did, but I believe we at least tried. Condy Rice gave a major speech in Cairo that was different in tone and I think I just...

ZEINAB BADAWI
You’ve got to, you’ve got to judge by results...

BILL KRISTOL
...Okay, well let’s, let’s... Okay so, Obama...

ZEINAB BADAWI
...But that’s what you said.

BILL KRISTOL
... I’m sorry, I didn’t say that. I said that President Bush spoke more energetically and effusively, and unapologetically for liberal democracy than Barrack Obama has. I think that’s a fact, and I think that if you ask the democrats in Iran, the one place where there was an actual democratic uprising when President Obama was President, let’s not talk about theories, that happened on June 12th. And are people happy with the reaction of the President of the United States to that uprising?

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay. Let’s take some more questions from the floor.

MAN 5 IN AUDIENCE
Stephen Gore, I’m a regular attender at these events. I think the proposition have a valid point when they say that the first results of the Obama change of foreign policy have been disappointing, but I would put to them that he’s long term, you can’t change things over night, that 18 months isn’t really that long to give his policy a chance to work. And I’d also say that, what alternative are they putting forward? It seems to me that they want to be on bad terms with every country, China, Russia, Iran, Iraq, everyone. I don’t think America, powerful though it is can fight all these people at the same time. If you’re going to sort out Iran you need, you need the help of Russia. If you’re going to sort out North Korea you need the help of China. Surely you’ve got to find allies, America, powerful as it is, cannot rule the world on its own.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Thank you, we’ll take that as a comment, not a question. Lady up there.

WOMAN 2 IN AUDIENCE
Hello, I’m undecided at the moment but I’m erring towards Simon Schama and I just want to ask him, we’ve talked about whether Obama’s policy is working or not, but I just wanted to ask you about the perception that other countries might have of America and whether, as some people say there is, you think there’s any danger in the way that, say, China or Russia perceives America’s more liberal foreign policy and therefore thinks that with that sort of perception of the politics of America that people say well you have to, you have to come across looking like you’re a strong country and if you show any weakness then, you know, they might use that against you. And whether that might be a real threat in your opinion?

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay, thank you. We’ll take another-some more questions. Before we come back to you Simon Schama. Yes there, and then the lady with the headscarf.

MAN 6 IN AUDIENCE
Do the panel think, as a general rule that the fact that most countries, or almost all countries, conduct their foreign policy entirely in their own national interest, as a general point that will always preclude the resolution of any conflicts including with the current Obama administration?

ZEINAB BADAWI
Thank you. Admirably brief. Could you put a microphone there please, just to keep things moving so we can make time.

MAN 7 IN AUDIENCE
Yes, hello. Can I ask if Bill Kristol’s idea of a stronger foreign policy is somehow emboldened by what’s happened in Sri Lanka where, I’m quite worried that by the conclusions of that war from my readings says, that scorched earth policy destroy the enemy edifices and leave town. Thank you.

ZEINAB BADAWI (20:13:54)
Okay.

WOMAN 3 IN AUDIENCE
Thank you. I just wanted to say that Obama’s foreign policy could never be seen as a gift to the enemies, i.e. the Muslim world which is being referred to today, because it follows in the tradition of decades of foreign policy towards the Muslim world by America which is characterised by interventionism, interference, supporting of dictatorships when it suits American interests, unstating support of Israel. And these pillars are consistent, they always remain consistent, whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat or Obama or Bush. And wouldn’t you say the most stark, you know, biggest difference with regards to Obama’s style of foreign policy, in comparison with his predecessor, is one of concern for perception, as the lady mentioned, and one of rhetoric more than anything else?
ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay.

MAN 8 IN AUDIENCE
The people who are opposing, or proposing this motion, say that there are no examples at all of success in Obama’s policy. There are, I think, lots of examples but I would give you just one example to think about. Under the last President, we had a President who was condoning and supporting torture. This President has come out against torture, against waterboarding and all the things which happened and that is an enormous foreign policy victory because it means that all the people around the world who are against torture can now support America in a way that they couldn’t before under the previous President.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Let’s pick up that point. Con Coughlin, perhaps that last point there about, you don’t have to detach values from US Foreign Policy and...

CON COUGHLIN
Well this is what I call a feel-good factor. Of course nobody in their right minds condones torture, even the Bush administration in its second term moved away from the whole waterboarding experience, as they like to call it. But, I mean, for the purposes of this debate, let’s just focus on what we’re talking about. The world is at war, I mean it doesn’t seem like it because you’re sitting her in great comfort because there are a hundred thousand NATO troops in southern Afghanistan protecting our right to sit here. But we are at war and the greatest challenge of the modern age comes from a perverted form of Islamist terrorism and rogue states. It’s been the same since 20/11. The challenge for Obama and for us is how we respond to this. I personally do not think that the Obama administration is grasping this in the right way, and I do think that it’s come back to the motion that he’s playing into the hands of his enemies as I said in my opening remarks.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay, thank you, Simon,briefly everybody from now on.

SIMON SCHAMA
Con, as, as one of the audience said, it’s incumbent on you to say how you would do it differently in Afghanistan...

CON COUGHLIN
I’m very happy to...

ZEINAB BADAWI
Well you’ve had 8 minutes to do that...

SIMON SCHAMA
...Well you failed to do it. Now, I just want to very quickly say  this point about achievement. The reason why Iraq, and we shouldn’t be complacent about Iraq, you know having brought democracy to Iraq. Two weeks ago a hundred people, a hundred Iraqi civilians were killed in one week in just Mosul and Baghdad. It’s been a hundred days, they had an election yes General Keane, but we still don’t actually have a government. What actually the policy of Iraq meant was to deliver a sort of Shiite trap really, which the Iranians were jumping for joy about – gee that was a really cracker idea! On Iran it’s, you know, let’s indeed get a woman. It’s very important that the Secretary of State is Hillary Clinton, who no one would confuse with Mary Poppins. What happened to the Turkey/Brazil deal instantly, pretty much instantly, repudiated by the Obama administration, as precisely the kind of meretricious deceit that it actually was.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay...

BILL KRISTOL
Well talking to governments like Turkey and Brazil in the Obama era could do something meretricious. Isn’t the whole point of the Obama administration that that would certainly happen under Bush, he was such a unilateralist, he disdained Turkey, he disdained in Brazil. How could that happen 16 months into Obama? They probably have public opinion polls, Pew polls, showing how more popular Obama is in Brazil and Turkey. It was a damaging thing, it shows how weak NATO is, the movement of Turkey in a bad direction which began under Bush, and began before Bush, I do not at all dispute that. Nonetheless, Obama has done nothing. The Cairo speech, has the Cairo speech stopped the collapse of Turkey towards Islamism and away from a pro-Western, pro-democratic, NATO ally? No. This is why, we’re not just saying there are no results, there are individual cases, the Russian arms deal Simon’s mentioned, that was a decent deal I think, it was less dramatic than the deal Bush made in 2002 to reduce nuclear stockpiles, apart from that result there are really very few results. I would say almost no results, and some bad results for Obama’s foreign policy.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Alright. BHL you want to come back on this?

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY
Yes. I just want to rebound on the very interesting remark which has been made at the first rank about torture and waterboarding and so on. This belongs to foreign policy, this is right in our topic, for two reasons. Number one, America is not any country, it is a very special country. It does not defend only some territories, or so called empire which never existed except in the imaginary of anti-empirists, America defends values. And a President who says ‘no waterboarding, no torture’ and tomorrow, ‘no Guantanamo’ it is a good foreign policy.

And number two, Obama is the first modern President to have understood one new thing, which is that there is another actor, on the theatre of foreign policy. Not only the Presidents and the Chiefs of State, not only the governments, but also the world public opinion. Obama knows today, and he’s maybe the only one to know it so accurately, that the main actor may be his public opinion.

ZEINAB BADAWI (20:20:34)
Sorry to interrupt you but... I have to be fair, sorry. Jack Keane and then Philip and then we’ll go back to the audience briefly.

GENERAL JACK KEANE
Couple of points. The woman in the back, we never answered her question about America and interventionism in dealing with the Muslim world. There are 55 million Muslims now, as a result of an intervention, are having a different quality of life experience. 25 of those million are in Iraq. As we sit here today there’s been a 95% reduction in the level of violence in Iraq. I’ve spent a lot of time there and it’s truly a country that is moving in the right direction, with a government that they elect. In Afghanistan, we removed a tyrannical, terrorist regime, the Taliban, which was inflicting 7th Century Talibanism on their people – much of which you saw on television. They are fighting to regain that power, and we are trying to stop that from happening. That intervention and that goodness in that part of the Muslim world, I think has made a dramatic change in people’s lives and in their future

ZEINAB BADAWI
Philip Bobbitt, briefly, and then we’ll go to the audience.

PHILIP BOBBITT
Let me just say about what’s just been said, and I strongly agree with that, and it’s something that General Keane and others will be celebrating for, for a very long time, I just think that Barrack Obama has helped make this possible through his political skills.

But I wanted to connect something this young man said with what another person said just a few minutes before. We were asked whether or not states didn’t just follow their own national interests anyway, it didn’t really matter what any other state did? And the answer is, of course they follow their national interest as they should. But groups within a state don’t always agree where that national interest lies, there is a constant debate about this. And when those who support a policy that is sympathetic to the West, to democracies, to liberal humane values can do so with the self respect that comes from being a partner with someone like the United States, led by a man like Obama, it’s a very different debate for all of those states.


ZEINAB BADAWI
We are on a time limit here so, panel, I can’t come back to any more questions I’m afraid. I will just have to take some comments briefly from the audience here and panel, you’ll have to incorporate anything you hear in your closing statements.
The lady here, and if I can run through two or three. Okay, lady and then the gentleman there.

WOMAN 4 IN AUDIENCE
I wanted to ask the panellists’ view of Obama not meeting with the Dalai lama? He did eventually, once he made sure there was no photo op, but he didn’t initially and I’m wondering what signal does that send to our enemies when perhaps it indicates that we’re not putting human rights front and centre for our foreign policy? Thank you.

MAN 9 IN AUDIENCE
Does the panel agree with the view expressed by some senior US military commanders, that the way to undermine America’s enemies, in particular Islamic extremists in the Middle East and Afghanistan and elsewhere is to resolve the Israel/Palestinian question with sustainable two state solution?

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay.

WOMAN 5 IN AUDIENCE
We’ve heard a great deal about the military policy but there’s more to foreign policy than military policy. I wonder if the panel has anything to say about other aspects of Obama’s foreign policy, for example, the Global Health Initiative or some of the more constructive areas of Foreign Policy? Thank you.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay... Right, just two more briefly and then that’s all I’ve got time for.

MAN 10 IN AUDIENCE
Obama’s foreign policy actually brings an end on the chapter of fear and terror and opens the chapter, a new chapter of peaceful negotiations and dialogue instead of war and torture.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay.

MAN 11 IN AUDIENCE
Could Professor Bobbitt explain to us why President Obama did not offer any words of support for the Green Movement in Iran?

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay. And one final one. The lady. I have to address this gender situation.
WOMAN 6 IN AUDIENCE
Surely we must accept that no, in an era of inheriting deficits, no world leader has inherited such a goodwill deficit as Barrack Obama, and this is purely the result of 8 years of Mr Bush.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Alright, thank you. That’s all we’ve got time for from the audience and we’re going to have our closing statements now from our panellists and then our audience here, you, are going to vote again to see if the undecided have now made up their minds, if the fors and the againsts have actually shifted their opinions and actually jumped ship.
And just let me remind you, how to vote. If you are for the motion ‘Obama’s Foreign Policy is a gift to America’s enemies’ then just tear your ticket in half and put the for in the box. If you are against the motion, put that bit in. And if you’re still undecided, just put the whole ticket into the box alright?
And while you’re voting, our final statements from our panel are going to try to persuade you to go with their position. And we’re going to have our closing statements in reverse order. So, arguing against the motion ‘Obama’s Foreign Policy is a gift for America’s enemies’, Bernard-Henri Levy. And you may stay sitting.

BERNARD-HENRI LEVY 
Two minutes, okay. What I would like to say to conclude, two thing-three things. Number one, I don’t remember any President in America to whom such a strong demand has been made so early. I don’t remember that for Clinton, that for Bush, that for Reagan, there was such an intense demand of results so early in the first term. There is a degree of demand which is unprecedented to Obama.
Number two. Nevertheless, my feeling after having heard my friend panellists and our so called adversaries, is that he made a lot, he made a lot in a very short time. He made a lot because he named Pakistan, for the first time, he said there is one country in the world where you have weapon of mass destruction with the ideology which is able to put the fire on them which is Pakistan. He made a lot because, in Afghanistan, there are some improvements. Talibans are weaker than they were, more isolated inside the population than we believe. I was in Afghanistan a few month ago and I can bear testimony of that. I went there two years ago, you had American troops with Afghan scouts, a few months ago it was the reverse - National Army of Afghanistan with some American, not scouts but mentors. There is a progress.
And, about Middle-East, I’m sorry, but he’s the first President not to have waited the last month of the last year of his last mandate to engage a sort of race to try to find and agreement. He does his best since the very beginning of his first mandate.
And I would add that he has the same enemies as the previous administrations, but that he deals with these enemies in a way more wise, and with more, I said poison, let’s say with more poise than his predecessors.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Thank you.
For the motion, Con Coughlin, your two minutes.

CON COUGHLIN
Well it’s clearly quite a challenge for the proposers to overcome the mindset that we’ve encountered here. I think the first thing I would say in answer to Simon’s question about what do we want – we want clear decisive and effective leadership to help us prevail in the climate that we currently find ourselves in the various conflict areas. I think at heart, Barrack Obama is a very sophisticated politician. I, as I said, I saw him in action on the campaign trail and he’s always got his eye on the focus groups. And Simon might dispute the whole timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan, but there’s no doubt in my mind. I was in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, I spoke to officials there. They all think that by January 2012, the next Presidential race gets underway, Barrack Obama does not want to have American troops in combat situations in Afghanistan.
And picking up from Bernard-Henri Lévy‘s point about the progress being made in Afghanistan, yes there is progress being made in Afghanistan. It started in 2006 when NATO first deployed and it is gradually building momentum. But that momentum, as far as I’m concerned, is in danger of being lost unless we have a President in the White House who’s going to demonstrate leadership.

And just quickly on Iran. If you look at the deal that Obama has done with the Russians to win their support for a new round of sanctions on Iran, he’s actually succeeded; a) in watering down the sanctions so they’ll actually mean very little to Iran and secondly in allowing Russia to increase its arms sales to Iran. When the Russians deliver their new S300 anti- aircraft missile systems to Iran, we won’t be able to do anything about their nuclear program because their air defences will be so sophisticated the military option will be ruled out. I think that’s what Obama wants, he wants to limit our options. He wants to be the feel-good President, he wants to focus on issues like waterboarding and make the world feel a better place. But he shies away from the really big decisions which is making us safe and the world safer. So I commend the motion to you.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Okay. Philip Bobbitt.
There was a specific question from the audience about why Obama has failed to support the Green Movement in Iran so do incorporate that in your closing statements. Against the motion, Philip Bobbitt.

PHILIP BOBBITT
The Iranian example is a very difficult one and I think it was an agonising decision for the White House, and they may have gotten it wrong. What they feared was that, by dramatically supporting the dissident movement, they would somehow shift the balance of forces within Iran itself and give support to the regime’s claim that these were simply tools of the West, and solidify opinion against that that movement. Now they may have been wrong, and it was an agonising decision and I think one closely defined, but I think that may have been their thinking.
On the larger question tonight. There’s a room in the library of Congress that has two huge globes made for Louis XIV, one is a terrestrial globe, one is a cosmological globe. And the terrestrial globe shows a depiction of Baha, California, as if it were surrounded by water, as if it were an island. Now, the cartographer knew, from the reports of missionaries and explorers and of merchants, that this was not the case. And yet relying on globes and maps like that one, explorers kept portaging ships across this peninsula looking for a body of water that didn’t exist. The map had such a grip on their minds, they couldn’t confront reality, they couldn’t accept it. What we have, what we’re all facing, what the young people in this audience will face in their lifetimes, is a new map. I think Barrack Obama, among his many gifts, has the intellectual and moral force to look at this new map clearly. It is one in which we cannot isolate strategic problems from legal problems. And I’m proud that he is our President because I think he, he can see this clearly.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Thank you. For the motion, General Jack Keane, try to persuade the audience to go with you.

GENERAL JACK KEANE
Well thank you for your comments tonight, and also for your interest and motivation on an important subject and also, distinguished colleagues – I like being among you, it’s kind of fun. Most of my adult life I’ve been a soldier and been involved in national security in the military and there’s been a constant in that life and, and it’s been that thugs and bullies impose their will, many of them on their own people, and much on other people’s people. And the history books are replete with what that’s been. America and this country have stood up against a lot of that, when it was in our national interest and also when it was in the interest of mankind. And to deal with that, you have to come at it from a position of strength. These people in the world, these bullies, these morally corrupt thugs – and that’s what they are – the only thing they truly understand is strength and your ability, at times, to inject fear to deal with that.
And I’m not suggesting this is about military force, but I am suggesting that it’s about strength. It is about the moral character of what Ronald Reagan did in dealing with the Soviet Union, coming at that problem from apposition of strength. Calling the bear in the woods what it truly was, being able to define it and argue against it from a position of ideas. And letting them understand that America was not going away. That to deal with America, it would force your economic collapse if you had to deal with us. And that is the kind of moral character that we need to continue to deal with this troubled world we have. Your great leader here, Winston Churchill, understood this in spades. In not backing away from these enemies. This radical Islamic movement is a threat to all of us, our children and our grandchildren. It’s the most significant threat, I believe, that we will face in the 21st Century and I think it was a more serious threat than what we faced with the Soviet Union.
And you can not back away from this threat. You have to step up to it and you have to deal with it. My administration, which I want to succeed, and I would suggest that 18 months is a little early to be looking at whether this administration is succeeding or not – I agree with that, I mean, let’s be realistic about it. But there are trends, there are disturbing trends there and we want to try to influence those trends to correct them as best we can. But the fact of the matter is, my administration is redefining its relationship with your country, our closest ally in the world. It’s redefined its relationship with Israel. Both of these countries are questioning; what is America’s intent? That is really disturbing. Because we need the United Kingdom, we need to be joined at the hip to deal with these threats that are in the world. And Israel is a country that we helped to start. And yes should we influence Israel. Are there problems, yes there are. But they frankly believe they’re in a lifeboat without a lifeline right now, and there’s something not right about that in my view. President Sarkozy asked a rhetorical question about President Obama; ‘Is he tough enough?’ Is he tough enough? We’re going to find out, we will find out.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Thank you.

ZEINAB BADAWI
So, the two final pitches, and remember Simon Schama, 458 undecideds so make your final pitch, arguing against the motion.
 
SIMON SCHAMA
Actually, I wanted to say a very quick word agreeing with Bill Kristol and members of the other side, and actually disagreeing with my distinguished colleague to my left. I do think the indecent prolonged pause of a clear statement about what was happening in Tehran at the time was one of the most morally craven misjudgements that American foreign policy has ever made. I absolutely agree with you about that.

However, General Keane, you asked what is toughness? Toughness in the greatest American tradition, the tradition of the Revolution itself, toughness in the tradition of Abraham Lincoln’s capacious mind was never measured by regiments, battalions, the simplicity, the brutal simplicity of military power. The glory of the Gettysburg Address is that toughness, as you say, is measured by the grandeur of the American idea, and you’re the first person I’ve ever heard who accuses Barrack Obama of having all too few ideas about what America stands for.
We cannot, in this scary world, I think we’re all agreed on the nature of the enemy on the nature of what radical jihadi Islam represents, we cannot fight these new wars and endlessly go on about World War II and Winston Churchill. We’re in the new world, we’re in the digitally connected world, where those we have to win over are townsmen trying to make a living in Kandahar, are the people who’d like to be able to make a living in the fields of Afghanistan other than have to surrender heroin to drug lords. And our greatest weapon is the American history, the American idea. Barrack Obama is ultimately an American patriot. Why? Because he understands the greatness of American history is a negotiation between power, liberty and moral decency. And if he is to succeed, and it is an open question I absolutely agree, he will add his name to the Presidents who’ve accomplished that debate, who’ve made us think about the relationship between freedom, power and decency

ZEINAB BADAWI
Final word to you, Bill Kristol, arguing for the motion

BILL KRISTOL
I think Jack Keane really said it best, and I almost hesitate to speak after him. I’ll just say that Simon Schama has given extraordinarily little in the way of an actual defence of Barrack Obama’s real foreign policy or real foreign policies. Phil Bobbitt has given some eloquent general thought on foreign policy and war and politics without also spending much time defending Barrack Obama’s actual policies in the world, or certainly pointing to any actual results or even favourable trends, favourable trends, in the Koreas, in Iran, in the in the broader Muslim Middle East, even on the Israeli/Palestinian issue, on strengthening our allies in Europe, the people, the newly democratic peoples of East Europe. I think Philip Bobbitt was hampered because he really should be on our side since he’s wearing a tie you know, and he feels very uncomfortable sitting between Simon and Bernard-Henri Levy.
But I also, I will I will address myself though to Bernard-Henri Lévy in just a couple of ways. I very much, wouldn’t want to associate myself with his eloquent remarks on Israel, which I agree with and commend him for. In response to two different questions which implied somehow we would seek to pursue a scorched earth policy in the Muslim world, or that we have just, the American administrations for decades have intervened sort of randomly a hostile way there. I think I first met Bernard-Henri Lévy when we both supported the American and Western intervention in Bosnia and called for it before it happened actually, called for it to be done more urgently, and supported the effort in Kosovo on behalf of Muslims. And I believe whatever we differ on, we can differ on the prudence of these interventions but I certainly believe an awful lot of British and American and other Western young men and women have died fighting for the freedom of Muslims in the Middle-East, not seeking to oppress them or conquer them. And I want to say that in answer to those two questions that suggest that somehow we enjoy going around creating scorched earth. And in the Middle East the opposite was the case with, the whole point of the counter-insurgency was working with the people there as Bernard said, and Afghanistan working with the Afghans to help them resist the Taliban.

I don’t honestly believe in the conclusion that Bernard quite believes in. If I might say he’s a very intelligent man, a very skilled debater but when you spend six or seven of your eight minutes on Sun Tzu I think that’s a bit of a giveaway that you don’t really want to debate Obama’s foreign policy, you want to discuss very interesting theoretical propositions laid down by a thinker 2600 years ago.

ZEINAB BADAWI
Right. Well I know what has happened and while our panellists were giving their closing statements our audience here were being asked to vote again to see whether they’ve shifted opinions. And, this is how our audience has voted. So, for the motion, ‘Obama’s Foreign Policy is a gift to America’s Enemies’ our audience for the motion are 369, it’s gone up from 297 before the debate, so you’ve won some people over. However, not enough. Against the motion, 780 and the undecided have gone down to 90. So you went up from 780 it was, before the debate 561. So, congratulations to you, the winning side. Commiserations to you.
Our thanks to all these speakers for making this very important debate possible. Thank you to you also at home for watching and the audience her at Central Hall, Westminster in London. And don’t forget you can get more on this debate at www.intelligencesquared.com. But from me, Zeinab Badawi, goodbye.

[END OF DEBATE]