When the Public is Informed…….

……there is a changing of mind. First here is a report from The National Post written by one of the organisers of a debate between Charles Krauthammer, Niall Ferguson, Samantha Power and Richard Holbrooke which took place in Toronto a few weeks ago.

RUDYARD GRIFFITHSNational Post
Last week in Toronto, Samantha Power, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and former adviser to Barack Obama, was uncharacteristically downbeat. In the green room, following the inaugural Munk Debate, the normally plucky Ms. Power crumpled herself up into a lounge chair. Nursing a glass of red wine, she interspersed a flurry of browfurrowed cellphone calls by beckoning passers-by to explain to her the debate’s unexpected outcome.

And, an unexpected outcome it was. Going into the debate, only 21% of the assembled audience agreed with the motion that “the world is a safer place with a Republican in the White House.” Two hours later, this mostly liberal and deeply anti-Bush crowd had a profound change of heart: 43% ended up voting for the motion.

The debate previewed three highly effective arguments — put forward with devastating effect by the formidable Charles Krauthammer, and historian Niall Ferguson — for why America, Canada and the world will be safer if John McCain and the Republicans form the next U.S. administration.

First, John McCain is not George W. Bush. The Republican nominee’s positions on a host of issues — most notably climate change, torture and the need for more multilateral diplomacy — are the opposite of those held by the current occupant of the White House. Listening to Niall Ferguson summarize the foreign-policy agenda of a McCain presidency, it is hard to see much, if any, daylight between the global outlook of the Republican nominee and the majority of the policy positions held by Canadian government today. Simply put, John McCain offers Americans, and the world, a return to a more pragmatic and predictable role for the United States.

When the debate turned to the future of America’s involvement in Iraq, Charles Krauthammer was able, amazingly, to fight Ms. Power to a draw on whether the world would be a less safe place if the occupation continued.

Specifically, Krauthammer blunted the all-Canadian audience’s deep skepticism about the Iraq War was by drawing attention to the fact that violence in the country is at a four-year low, that Iraqi troops have successfully retaken Basra after the disastrous British pullout, and that the alliance between the Sunni and U.S. forces in Anbar province remains in place.

It seems completely plausible to me that McCain, like Krauthammer, can use the improving situation on the ground in Iraq to avoid the war becoming, as Obama so desperately wishes it would, the ballot question in November.

If last week’s Munk Debate provides some clues as to how McCain can garner support among “moderates” — Torontonians, after all, are as a liberal as Vermonters, if not more so — then a big part of the republican election strategy will be to exploit Obama’s lack of foreign-policy experience.

There was noticeable queasiness among Obama supporters in the audience when Krauthammer and Ferguson gleefully dissected the multiple foreign-policy challenges facing America. From an ascendant Iran to an oil-drenched Russia bent on expanding its influence over Europe, to Pakistan teetering on the verge of collapse, the world today is a far more perilous place than in 2000, when another foreign policy neophyte, George W. Bush, assumed the presidency.

With decades of experience in the Senate, including on the Armed Services committee, and a harrowing military career of his own, McCain is central casting’s idea of what a president should look and sound like in a time of global crisis. In contrast, the centrepiece of Obama’s foreign policy strategy has become coffee klatches with the likes of Musharraf, Putin and Ahmadinejad.

Periodically in American history, foreign policy issues trump domestic worries on election day. If this occurs on Nov. 4, John McCain will be the next president of the United States.

If you don’t believe me, just ask Samantha Power.

Rudyard Griffiths is the cofounder of the Dominion Institute and co-organizer of the Munk Debates. www.munkdebates.com

Then if you have time, or even if you don’t, listen to the debate, it’s worth the time to hear Charles Krauthammer demolish the ‘thinking’ of Samantha Power, who is touted as being one of the 100 Most Influential Thinkers. Well so much for that.

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