Evening Open Thread: Foreign Policy Meets Domestic Policy on the Blogs

[SeminalBlog]

It's been said over and over again that foreign policy doesn't win elections. That might explain why both parties are so bad at it.(*)
Nonetheless, foreign policy arguments sometimes enter national politics, as they did the other day during the uproar over Bush's appeasement comments.
It was heartening to see Obama strike back at Bush and McCain immediately and with great force. This kind of response to attacks makes me feel a bit better about the election going forward.
The whole episode bring up questions about the differences between McCain and Obama's foreign policy. It's a great argument to have, as Paul Rosenberg explains:

In short, the allegiance to a super-hawk foreign policy is not something that McSame is going to(*)change. (*)But given how unpopular Bush's war has become, it's something he willspin, and spin(*)hard. (*)And this will cause increasing problems with the "straight talk" narrative-whether the press wants to notice it or not. (*)This is why Barack Obama is 100% correct to be welcoming a foreign policy debate with McCain. The more you hear about McCain's(*)actual(*)foreign policy views, the farther they diverge from the American public's. (*)It took almost 30 years–including the intentionally limited gulf War I(*)and(*)9/11 to get the American public to forget Vietnam, and willingly embrace limitless interventionism again. (*)We are(*)not(*)up for more of the same.

If there is one clear issue where Americans agree right now, it's Iraq. We want out, and McCain wants us to stay in.
Looking deeper, one hopes Obama has more of a vision for his foreign policy than simply leaving Iraq. While deciding to talk to people around the world is a great start, there are a lot of details yet to be worked out. Our own Alex Thurston, writing for The Agonist, has one suggestion:

As we think our way through to a new US foreign policy, more suitable for the changing global environment, I would urge the creation of a high-profile diplomatic emergency response team for crisis situations abroad.
Intervening diplomatically is in our interest for moral reasons (we may help prevent bloodshed), economic reasons (festering crises in countries like Nigeria disrupt our supply of oil, for example), and strategic reasons (we have resorted to military action in(*)Somalia(*)and Afghanistan after ignoring crises there for years).

This kind of personal, intimate foreign policy shows signs of success already in the example of Kofi Annan's intervention in Kenya. It's something Obama should consider supporting(*)publicly.
There's a lot to be hammered out between now and November. What other foreign policy ideas would you like Obama to consider?
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