Biden, Richardson call for ‘soft,’ ‘smart’ diplomacy
GOFFSTOWN – U.S. Sen. Joe Biden and former Gov. Bill Richardson called for more foreign aid and more diplomacy at a major forum on foreign policy at St. Anselm College yesterday.
The two Democratic presidential contenders were among several policy leaders who made impassioned pleas for a new comprehensive foreign policy that went beyond military power, returning to an emphasis on diplomacy, free trade and foreign aid, known as tools of “soft” or “smart” power.
The forum was hosted by the Center for U.S. Global Engagement and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics and also featured as keynote speakers Jack Kemp, a former Republican vice presidential candidate, and General Barry McCaffrey, a drug czar under President Bill Clinton.
“I’m proud to stand with both organizations because of what they stand for,” Biden said. “We have a common vision for the future. It’s a vision of an America that embraces the power of its example as well as the example of its power. It’s the vision of an America that recaptures the totality of its strength.”
Saying little about Iraq, Afghanistan or Iran, Biden instead focused on Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf recently suspended the constitution and declared martial law.
“It’s hard to imagine a greater nightmare for America than the world’s second-largest Muslim nation becoming a failed state in fundamentalist hands, with an arsenal of nuclear weapons and a population larger than those of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea combined,” Biden said.
History won’t repeat itself in Pakistan, he said, only if the next American president builds a long-term relationship with the country.
U.S. funding for the Pakistani military should be continued only if the Pakistani military is able to effectively fight al-Qaida and the Taliban and if Musharraf restores democratic reforms, Biden said.
Richardson urged a doubling of U.S. foreign aid to 2 percent of the federal budget, or more than $50 billion. He said democratic countries that respect human rights would be given preference over those that oppress their peoples.
The former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations also said membership on the U.N. Security Council should be opened up to other countries, such as Japan, Germany and India. South America and Africa, he said, should also get to pick their own representative for the council.
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