Confidence Building Measures
“Confidence Building Measures” is a term more commonly associated with international conflict than U.S. domestic politics, but at the dawn of a new political era in Washington, DC both the Republican President and the new Democratic Congress would be wise to consider employing this age old tactic.
Such measures are needed because the level of distrust, and distain, between the two parties is at an all time high and frankly the country cannot afford two more years of political sparring….not when Iraq threatens to become the most damaging intervention in U.S. history and not when we also need to focus on a slate of other incredibly serious foreign policy issues.
So what can the Administration and Congress agree on during the first weeks of 2007 in order to build the trust needed to tackle the top tier crises of our time?
First, the President could announce that he will host a high level White House meeting on Darfur for key legislators and foreign policy experts from inside and outside government. Darfur is a bipartisan concern and the President would show leadership if he were to convene a group that would be able to map out a comprehensive U.S. global engagement plan on Darfur. Symbolically he could ask Rep. Payne (D-NJ) and Sen. Brownback (R-KS) to co-chair the working sessions.
Second, Congress should pass and the President should sign into law, legislation that would create a task force on AIDS and Global Poverty co-chaired by former President’s George H. W. Bush and William J. Clinton tasked with developing a road map for the U.S. to play a leadership role in ensuring that the Millennium Development Goals are attained by 2015.
Third, our elected officials should create an Independent Bipartisan Commission on Interrogation. After two failed efforts to effectively tackle the issue of interrogation it is past time that a broad range of experts are brought together and tasked with the duty of holistically looking at this issue and subsequently offering Congress and the President clear guidance as to changes in the law that need to be made. The experts would be drawn from the intelligence, foreign policy, law enforcement, military, veterans, legal and human rights community. Additional members could include representatives of the faith community, theologians, cultural specialists and historians.
Will these three confidence building measures be easy to accomplish? Unfortunately, in an indictment of Washington, DC circa 2006 the answer is no. However, in contrast to the top tier challenges to come these three measures are more easily attainable and would set a tone of cooperation for the final two years of the President’s term in office.
The country is facing a cluster of significant foreign policy challenges and needs the Administration and the Congress to work together – first they need to remember how this is done.
No related posts.
I think the answer must be YES. We need a Confidence Building Policy from both side of the Aisle. It is better to swollow the past mistake and move forward.
Comment on December 8, 2006 @ 8:31 am
I could not agree more. On so many levels this makes sense. When people have been dogardly antagonistic toward one another for a long time, there needs to be a re-learning of civility and cooperation. Creating opportunities to do this on significant but politically neutral issues will allow those issues to move forward and for constructive relationships and communication to be re-established.
Comment on December 8, 2006 @ 10:33 am
All important issues that would help with confidence building. However, you overlook what the issue that I consider to have the most potential for bipartisan support: energy security. Many polls including this one: http://www.lcv.org/newsroom/lcv06m2__post-election_.pdf that looked at November’s results saw that one of the major foreign policy issues on the minds of voters was that of oil dependency. This is one that doesn’t break necessarily along partisan lines. Everyone knows that we need to deal with this. But it’s going to take political will from both parties to actually do something substantive. There are going to be winners and losers. And the potential losers – oil producers – have tremendous influence.
Comment on December 8, 2006 @ 11:38 am
I agree that the public is ready for a change in US energy policy and in some respects we have a lot of good building blocks in place to move the country in a new direction.
However, I do feel that the final policy framework may need to be developed a bit more.
The last part of the memo (linked) made this point:
“voters point to energy independence as their top national security concern and
they overwhelmingly favor proposals that invest in alternative energy as their preferred
solution.”
For me a 21st Century energy policy needs to recognize the importance of – and need for – energy interdependence. I think we need to support the creation and dissemination of alternative fuels and alternative fuel technologies at an affordable price for our country and the global market. The adoption of these alternatives and a corresponding reduction in oil consumption by other major consumers of carbon based fuels such as India and China (in addition to ourselves of course) is key.
We need to start working with developing countries to ensure access to the clean and safe energy tools they need to meet their growing energy needs and lift themselves out of poverty without contributing to global warming. We also need to start providing alternatives to nuclear power for countries that wish to diversify their energy sources
Comment on December 11, 2006 @ 5:36 am
Gruezi, Super Site betreibt Ihr hier!!! Das kann sich wirklich sehen lassen…
Comment on May 29, 2007 @ 6:19 pm