Reviving '"the Radical Center'/Jim Lobe MAJOR STORY--FOREIGN POLICY!!!

[Gloria]

Aug 3, 2005



Just posted to the new World Media Watch up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com

PRESS CONFERENCE TOMORROW!

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GH03Aa01.html

Reviving the 'the radical center'
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - As US President George W Bush announced the unprecedented recess appointment of ultra-nationalist John Bolton as his next ambassador to the United Nations, a group of diplomatic heavyweights was preparing to launch a bipartisan coalition to promote a return to a more moderate and multilateral foreign policy.

While the group, which calls itself the Partnership for a Secure America, was not explicitly set up to act to oppose the more radical initiatives of the Bush administration, the chief organizers - both Republicans and Democrats - have sometimes been harshly critical of specific Bush policies, especially the decision to go to war in Iraq and innovative policy initiatives such as the promotion of preemptive war against "rogue states".

The group includes top officials who served in the administrations of presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, such as the two presidents' most durable national security advisers - Samuel Berger and Zbigniew Brzezinski, respectively - as well as former secretary of state Warren Christopher; Clinton's first national security adviser, Anthony Lake; former defense secretary William Perry, and former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

But it also includes leading Republican moderates, some of whom have even served under Bush. They include former senator Howard Baker, who served until last year as Bush's ambassador to Japan, and, even more significantly, his most recent UN ambassador, former senator John Danforth, who, since his resignation, has been uncharacteristically outspoken about his concerns that the Republican Party has increasingly come under the sway of the Christian Right.

Lawrence Eagleburger, a protege of Henry Kissinger and the number two in the State Department under George H W Bush who also served briefly as acting secretary of state in 1992, as well as one of Ronald Reagan's national security advisers, retired General Robert "Bud" MacFarlane, have also signed up.

Other leading Republicans include former trade representative Carla Hills, former senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, former New Jersey governor and co-chair of the 9-11 Commission Thomas Kean, and the former deputy secretary of state under Reagan, John Whitehead. Former UN ambassador Thomas Pickering, who served under Bush Sr but, like Eagleburger was a career foreign service officer, has also joined.

The new group will formally launch itself Wednesday at a news conference in Washington conducted by two well-known and respected former lawmakers, Lee Hamilton, a top foreign-policy Democrat during his many years in the House of Representatives, who also co-chaired the 9-11 Commission and currently serves as head of the influential Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Warren Rudman, a prominent Republican moderate and former senator who has served on several bipartisan commission over the past two decades.


MORE MORE MORE!

[laststeamtrain]

1. See this thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=144198&mesg_id=144198

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. glad to see this happening

I think that the coaltion of Dems and real Republicans will be a good one.

[rodeodance]

3. something has to crack in these insane foriegn policies. Wolfie, Bolton

now IN the foreign arena---along with Condi. They are spead their influence. Lets hope that this group makes a difference.