Obama: Peacemaker or Vigilante?
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 October 2012
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Barack Obama stood before a 200,000-strong crowd in Berlin in 2008 his declaration that "now is the time to build new bridges across the globe" was met with jubilation by a crowd which believed the future American president would pursue a gentler foreign policy, completely unlike that of George W Bush. This liberal enthusiasm extended to the Nobel Committee, which awarded Obama its Peace Prize in his first year of office. The man himself accepted the Prize, and the warm feelings, but did he ever intend to pursue the sort of foreign policy which his well-wishers in Europe and on the American left expected of him? And what - when set against their expectations, or indeed his own promises - has President Obama actually achieved on the world stage?
Interviewees include:
Bruce Riedel, former adviser on foreign policy to Barack Obama Ann Marie Slaughter, former Director of Policy Planning for the U.S. State Department under Barack Obama Daniel Drezner, Professor of International Politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University James Fallows, The Atlantic magazine Gregory Johnsen, Near East Studies Scholar, Princeton University Jameel Jaffer, lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union
Presenter: Mukul Devichand Producer: Richard Knight.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
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| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 0:36.0 | You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. |
| 0:39.0 | In this week's analysis, Mokal Devichand asks whether President Obama's record on foreign policy lives up to the expectations |
| 0:46.0 | of his early fans, including the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. |
| 0:50.9 | There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other, to learn from each other, to respect |
| 0:57.0 | one another, and to seek common ground. |
| 1:00.6 | Baro-Bama, then then and now. |
| 1:04.0 | And so long as I'm Commander-in-Chief, we will sustain the strongest military the world has ever known. |
| 1:11.0 | Then? |
| 1:12.0 | For all the cruelty and hardship of our world we are not mere |
| 1:17.8 | prisoners of fate our actions matter and can bend history in the direction of justice. |
| 1:26.0 | Now? |
| 1:28.0 | A new tower rises above the New York skyline. |
| 1:32.0 | Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and... rises above the New York skyline. |
| 1:32.8 | Al Qaeda is on the path to defeat and Osama bin Laden is dead. |
| 1:36.0 | After four years of President Obama, many of his liberal fans in America and beyond feel cheated. |
| 1:47.3 | They thought they were electing a man who would undo what they saw as the worst excesses |
... |
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