ike/ Response to Dennis Ross and Obama's Promise

I agree very much with my friend. Dennis Ross is a foreign policy heavyweight who has dedicated much of his professional life to directly negotiating peace between Israel and Palestine. His work with the Soviet Union, and its value with a provocative Russia, is well-stated in my friend's previous post.

Ross wrote his most recent book, Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World, last year, and he defines productive foreign policy as dependant on direct negotiations. As one might predict, he is dismayed by the Bush II administration's unilaterist approach to the world.

As our recent success with North Korea and failures with Iran have proved, direct dialogue works. W's almost-Freudian rejection of his father's rather progressive foreign policy approach and subsequent embrace of neoconservativism, a school of thought born and proliferated in academia but consistently rebuked in practice, represents the most damaging legacy of his presidency.

It is encouraging to see Obama continue to advocate a philosophy of talking and an administration of experience and rationality. John McCain would be wise to embrace a similar approach; it would do much to calm well-earned fears about his bellicosity.