World

QUESTION

WHAT IS the future of U.S. involvement in Iraq?

Stephen Biddle

The campaign talked on a number of occasions about a residual force that would consist of multiple tens of thousands of American troops. How many multiple tens of thousands? And the missions of that residual force haven’t been fleshed out. … The central danger in Iraq right now is that some spark will reignite the violence. The classic role of a peacekeeping force is ensuring that such sparks don’t cause fires. … The only plausible actor who could play that peacekeeping, stabilizing role in Iraq is us. And you can’t do peacekeeping with doctors and helicopter pilots. You have to have armed troops on the ground.

Robert Kaplan

To succeed as president, Obama will have to keep Iraq off the front pages. Indeed, the more Iraq remains on the back pages in coming months, the better. He needs to delicately withdraw from Iraq and move forces into Afghanistan while keeping Iraq on a low burner and quelling gradually the fires in Afghanistan. He can’t do that by rushing for the exits. Yes, the Iraqi government, by virtue of the status of forces agreement it is negotiating with the United States, is committed to a quick American troop pullout. But that is the public display; behind the scenes, Iraqi defense officials are hoping for a slower, more careful withdrawal.

Phyllis Bennis

Obama got massive support in the United States because he said he would end the war. The problem is his actual policy does not call for ending the war. Leaving behind as many as 80,000 troops indefinitely —- that is not a recipe for ending the war. You can make the argument that if you withdraw the “official combat troops” you’re no longer fighting a war. But it you leave behind counterinsurgency troops, what are you doing? They’re not there to build schools, they’re there to fight. … We can’t make good on our commitments to the people of Iraq until we end the occupation, close the bases, stop trying to control Iraqi oil.

QUESTION:

WITH IRAN suspected of seeking nuclear weapons, how will the United States engage with Tehran?

Timothy McKeown

You don’t negotiate with people because you like them or you want them to have dinner with you. You negotiate with them because it’s the pragmatic thing to do. A lot of people in the national security community have been uneasy about notions that talking to people is something that rewards the people you talk to, and that’s the only real consideration you have to keep in mind. [Initially] what we might end up having is something that isn’t all that visible —- lower-level contacts with these groups or governments … as a way of obtaining more information about the people we’re negotiating with: to find out what they want and what they’re prepared to concede on.

Sherifa Zuhur

One thing the Iranians want is for the United States to change its policy seeking regime change in Iran. So long as that’s our policy, they say, it makes it very difficult for them to speak to us —- not just difficult for us to speak to them. The immediate concern of the Obama administration would be, I hope, negotiating over the nuclear issue, rather than this notion that we want a different government to negotiate with. … If Obama’s looking at a parallel, there’s Korea. We seem to have less difficulty presenting certain carrots to Korea. That’s what you have to do if you want somebody to do something they don’t want to do.

Sandra Mackey

No matter how much animosity there is between us and Iran, and how long it’s gone on, we suddenly find that [we have] common interests. For instance, neither we nor Iran wants chaos in Iraq. Another is that Iran is very concerned about the Taliban in Afghanistan; it has to do with the fact that the Taliban are Sunnis, and the Iranians are Shia. Another common interest that hasn’t really started emerging yet, but it’s there, is that Iranians have had a real long-term suspicion of Russia. Iranians are watching very closely what’s going on in Georgia and watching with a certain amount of nervousness.

QUESTION

WILL THE United States’ reputation around the world improve, and is that important?

John Kelly

I think the perception of the United States will change. It probably has already changed in the past 24 hours [since Election Day]. Obama has been seen, by Europeans in particular, as a candidate they could embrace. A lot of people around the world look at Obama as an attractive new face and as someone who in his campaign talked about the need for negotiation. So he starts with a considerable plus. … I don’t worry too much about [whether] Europeans and others like the president. The test is whether you can work effectively together. Obama starts with a clean slate. He has an easy act to follow in the incumbent, George W. Bush.

Steven Kull

We found in polling earlier in the year that views of the United States had kind of bottomed out —- were still rather poor but had recovered a little bit. I attribute this to some extent to the influence of the presidential race, that the image of the U.S. was already beginning to become less associated with President Bush, who is quite unpopular. … If you’re not going to use military force to get other countries to do what you want done, then you have to use cooperation. This is much more difficult when people of those countries have a negative view of the United States. … There’s a very a pragmatic dimension to this concern about image.

Dan Reiter

We had this interesting remark by [Joe] Biden that Obama is likely to be challenged early in his administration —- something you commonly see. … The Russians announced yesterday, just a few hours after Obama’s victory speech, that they were going to deploy short-range missiles in Europe in response to the U.S. missile defense system. … The Russians are going to see what they can get away with, see what kind of leader he is. He was portrayed in the campaign as weak, and he’s sensitive to that, so I imagine he’s not going to make a lot of concessions —- regardless of how he feels about missile defense.

QUESTION

WILL THE White House play a more active role in brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians?

William Downs

While pledging fundamental change in America’s foreign policy, Obama made clear that the United States would not waver in its support for Israel’s security (including a new $30 billion over the next decade toward that end). However, unlike the departing Bush, Barack Obama rarely appears to see the world in categorical terms —- wholly in favor of or against someone or something. The United States will likely show concern for Palestinian grievances, and if the campaign rhetoric is borne out, Obama-Biden will work to facilitate the two-state solution for Israel and Palestine while taking a hard line against Hamas.

Eimad Houry

It appears that Obama will embrace the central tenets of the Bush administration approach: He supports a two-state solution; rejects the right-of-return position held by the Palestinians; embraces the idea of a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. … Obama has, however, been critical of Bush’s hands-off “road map” approach, arguing instead for a more proactive U.S. involvement in the talks. Obama’s task is likely to be complicated by the Israeli elections scheduled for February 2009. In the event that the right-wing Likud Party is elected, negotiations over the future of a Palestinian state will likely be more difficult.

Shahrough Akhavi

The Madrid Conference of 1991, the Oslo Peace Process of 1993-1995 and the various iterations (such as the Wye Plantation Accords of 1998 or the “Road Map for Peace” of 2003) all front-ended Palestinian concessions and rear-loaded Israeli concessions. Accordingly, they have not been supported by most Palestinians. … Obama could change the dynamics if he were to make “territory in exchange for peace” the linchpin of his policy in the region. To be credible, he needs not only to condemn terrorist violence but also to declare settlements in the occupied territories as violations of international law.

Foreign policy experts cited on this page

Stephen Biddle is a senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Robert Kaplan is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a writer for Atlantic magazine.

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and the author of “Ending the Iraq War.”

Timothy McKeown is a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,

Sherifa Zuhur is the author of “Precision in the War on Terror: Inciting Muslims Through the War of Ideas.”

Sandra Mackey is the Atlanta-based author of “The Iranians: Persia, Islam and the Soul of a Nation.”

John Kelly was U.S. ambassador to Lebanon from 1986 to 1988. He is now ambassador-in-residence at the Sam Nunn School at Georgia Tech.

Steven Kull directs the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland.

Dan Reiter is a professor of political science at Emory University specializing in international conflict and foreign policy.

William Downs is chairman of the political science department at Georgia State University and specializes in comparative politics.

Eimad Houry is chairman of political science at Mercer University and head of the international relations program.

Shahrough Akhavi is a professor of political science at the University of South Carolina.

WHAT HE SAID

How Barack Obama would shape his foreign policy, excerpted from his campaign Web site:

Iraq

The Iraq war has lasted longer than World War I, World War II and the Civil War. More than 4,000 Americans have died. More than 60,000 have been injured and wounded. The United States may spend $2.7 trillion on this war and its aftermath, yet we are less safe around the globe and more divided at home.

Withdrawal

Upon taking office, Obama will give his military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. We can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of one to two brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 —- more than seven years after the war began.

Afghanistan

The decision to invade Iraq diverted resources from the war in Afghanistan, making it harder for us to kill or capture Osama Bin Laden and others involved in the 9/11 attacks. … 2007 was the most violent year in Afghanistan since the invasion in 2001.

Negotiations

Obama and Biden will launch an aggressive diplomatic effort [that] … will include all of Iraq’s neighbors —- including Iran and Syria. … This compact will aim to secure Iraq’s borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al-Qaida; support reconciliation among Iraq’s sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq’s reconstruction and development.

Iran

We have not exhausted our nonmilitary options in confronting this threat; in many ways, we have yet to try them.

Diplomacy

The U.S. is trapped by the Bush-Cheney approach to diplomacy that refuses to talk to leaders we don’t like. Not talking doesn’t make us look tough —- it makes us look arrogant, it denies us opportunities to make progress, and it makes it harder for America to rally international support for our leadership.

“Make no mistake, Iran is the single biggest beneficiary of a war in Iraq that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged.” —- Obama, May 18, 2008

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“He wants to find out what works —- what advances U.S. national interests. … If secret diplomacy is required to achieve your objectives, he would certainly accept that.”

GREGORY B. CRAIG, Washington lawyer and Obama adviser