As the sun rises over the Atlantic seaboard, and Americans from Secaucus to Seattle and from Boston to Butte read their morning papers, scores of "letters to the editor" will attest to the heartfelt and principled concern of a group of former US Ambassadors and other former American diplomats over the course of their country's foreign policy. Full disclosure: I am one of that group, an ad hoc list of over 200 former US Foreign Service Officers who are publicly calling for "change" in US foreign policy, via the election of Senator Barack Obama as President.
A related group, Foreign Policy Professionals for Obama, will publish the declaration and the full list of signers on Wednesday August 20. Newspapers, websites, and blogs (including fellow signer Pat Kushlis of Whirled View) will cover this as well. Here is the text of the declaration:
We are a diverse group of over 200 former Foreign Service officers. Each of us has had extensive experience in implementing the international affairs and national security policies of both Republican and Democratic administrations. We have first hand knowledge of the grave multiple challenges of the Cold War, a period of peril but one in which the United States wore with honor the mantle of leadership. In cooperation with other democracies, and dialog with countries that were not, our nation found solutions to problems which seemed intractable. Senator Obama can place our nation again in that position of trust, credibility and respect.
With him, we call for a return to the successful reliance on bipartisan cooperation at home and close coordination on the use of active diplomacy with our friends and allies abroad, to face the challenges posed by those who are neither. We have watched with profound regret the frequent, costly failures of the current administration to apply these fundamental principles.
We, the undersigned, are firmly convinced that new American leadership is critical at this juncture in world history. We urge Americans, regardless of party affiliation, to select as our next president Senator Barack Obama, a leader with courage, intelligence, energy, a fresh perspective and a focus on the future. We believe based on our long foreign policy experience that he has the qualities needed to restore American leadership, credibility and respect in the world, the persona to make bipartisanship a possibility once again, and the judgment and vision to set our nation on the path to a better future.
Some words in the declaration stand out: honor, bipartisanship, intelligence, credibility, respect. In other words, restoration of principles that have been entirely absent in the Bush years. American diplomats, whose entire careers have been spent defending, protecting, and promoting "Brand America," are more aware than most of the damage that the Bush presidency has caused to the overseas image of the United States. And how a backward-looking "Bomb-Iran" McCain (the "national security" candidate who, sadly, embarrassingly, can't even get Iraq's borders situated) would only further entrench America's isolation from - and failed attempts to dominate parts of - the rest of the world.
I am honored to add my name to the Obama list, along with former bosses and colleagues with whom I served throughout the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. We know that the stakes are high, and that the country can simply not afford to stay-the-course of a disastrous foreign policy.