Reengaging With the World

A Return to Moral Leadership

John Edwards

From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2007

Summary:  In the wake of the Iraq debacle, we must restore America's reputation for moral leadership and reengage with the world. We must move beyond the empty slogan 'war on terror' and create a genuine national security policy that is built on hope, not fear. Only then can America once again become a beacon to the world.

John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator from North Carolina, is a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

NEW CENTURY, NEW CHALLENGES

Confronting the challenges of the new century will require strength, creativity, and moral leadership. The century ahead will bring new efforts by nonstate actors, ranging from terrorist groups to ethnically based local and regional movements, to redefine the boundaries of states, the jurisdiction of multilateral organizations, and the authority of international law. We will also face instability generated by weak and failing states. And we will face continuing challenges to our efforts to promote democracy. Elections alone are not enough; new democracies need to cultivate constitutionalism, strong institutions, pluralism, and a respect for a free press and the rule of law. Finally, a host of twenty-first-century developments from climate change to pandemics will likely impose additional stresses. A report issued in April by a group of 11 retired military officers, including General Gordon Sullivan, the former army chief of staff, and General Zinni, the former CENTCOM commander, described the potential of climate change to ignite a chain reaction leading to global instability. It could trigger conflicts over shrinking natural resources, weaken states through the creation of climate refugees, and hasten the spread of diseases and famine. We must act aggressively against this threat.

We should begin our reengagement with the world by bringing an end to the Iraq war. Iraq's problems are deep and dangerous, but they cannot be solved by the U.S. military. For over a year, I have argued for an immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 U.S. combat troops from Iraq, followed by an orderly and complete withdrawal of all combat troops. Once we are out of Iraq, the United States must retain sufficient forces in the region to prevent a genocide, a regional spillover of the civil war, or the establishment of an al Qaeda safe haven. We will most likely need to retain quick-reaction forces in Kuwait and a significant naval presence in the Persian Gulf. We will also need some security capabilities in Baghdad, inside the Green Zone, to protect the U.S. embassy and U.S. personnel. Finally, we will need a diplomatic offensive to engage the rest of the world -- including Middle Eastern nations and our allies in Europe -- in working to secure Iraq's future. All of these measures will finally allow us to close this terrible chapter and move on to the broader challenges of the new century.

We must confront these challenges not only through our military but also through diplomacy. Few areas deserve the United States' moral leadership more urgently than Sudan. The African Union peacekeeping troops stationed in Darfur have acted bravely in a difficult situation. But these 7,000 troops have been unable to protect civilians or enforce a 2004 cease-fire, and security has deteriorated dramatically. I believe President Bush should convene an emergency meeting of NATO's leadership to provide assistance to a UN deployment of 3,000 troops, backed by logistical, operational, and financial support. NATO must establish a no-fly zone over the region to cut off supplies to the brutal Janjaweed militias and end the Sudanese government's bombing of civilians in Darfur. NATO member states should also impose a new round of multilateral sanctions on the Sudanese government and freeze the foreign assets of individuals complicit in the genocide. The United States must make a decisive new commitment to employ the extraordinary assets of the U.S. military -- our airlift capabilities, logistical support, and intelligence systems -- to assist UN and African Union peacekeeping efforts in Darfur. And we must continue to pressure other countries with influence in the region, such as China, to meet their own responsibilities to help end this conflict.

We also need to renew our commitment to engagement and diplomacy in order to solve problems before they occur, rather than scrambling to deal with crises after they have erupted. With engagement comes far greater knowledge and the potential for progress and even trust. Presidents Kennedy and Reagan talked with Soviet leaders at the height of the Cold War, in both cases turning back major threats to our national security. We need to do the same with Iranian and North Korean leaders.

Iran presents a complicated challenge for the United States. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a dangerous radical and a strong supporter of Hezbollah and Hamas. He has said repeatedly that Israel should be "wiped off the map" and last December sponsored a conference for Holocaust deniers in Tehran. Iran cannot be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.

Unfortunately, the situation in Iran has only worsened under this administration. With a threat so serious, no U.S. president should take any option off the table -- diplomacy, sanctions, engagement, or even military force. When we say something is unacceptable, however, we must mean it, and that requires developing a strategy that delivers results, not just rhetoric. Instead of saber rattling about military action, we should employ an effective combination of carrots and sticks. For example, right now we must do everything we can to isolate Iran's leader from the moderate forces within the country. We need to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions through diplomatic measures that will, over time, force Iran to finally understand that the international community will not allow it to possess nuclear weapons. Every major U.S. ally agrees that the advent of a nuclear Iran would be a threat to global security. We should continue to work with other great powers to offer Tehran economic incentives for good behavior. At the same time, we must use much more serious economic sanctions to deter Ahmadinejad's government when it refuses to cooperate. To do this, we will have to deal with Iran directly. Such diplomacy is not a gift, nor is it a concession. The current administration recently managed to have one single-issue meeting with Iran to discuss Iraq. It simply makes no sense for the administration to engage Iran on this subject alone and avoid one as consequential as nuclear proliferation.

In North Korea, the recent agreement to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear reactor in exchange for the release of frozen assets is encouraging -- though long overdue. It is a sign that the carrots-and-sticks approach can work. Pyongyang's words, however, are not enough. We must require a commitment to future action. We must engage the North Korean government directly, through the six-party framework, placing economic and political incentives on the table in exchange for the verified, complete elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons capabilities.

Indeed, new leadership is needed for a broader, more systematic approach to confronting the most dangerous threat of the new century: the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In working toward the goal of a nuclear-free world, the United States must lead the effort to strengthen the international nonproliferation institutions, not cast them aside. The rules and institutions we rely on to stymie and isolate bad actors, while providing strong leverage and instruments for measuring progress, are increasingly riddled with loopholes and gaps. We should create a new Global Nuclear Compact to bolster the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would support peaceful nuclear programs, improve security for existing stocks of nuclear materials, and ensure more frequent verification that materials are not being diverted and nuclear facilities are not being misused. We must also halt the trade of the most dangerous technologies by the most dangerous states and increase the amount of money we spend on cooperative threat-reduction programs in the former Soviet republics. Finally, we should strengthen our nation's capacity to identify and respond to WMD threats by reforming the ways the U.S. government collects and analyzes intelligence and by giving the intelligence community the resources it needs.