This text is the transcript of a paper presented by the author at the Istanbul Seminars organized by Reset Dialogues on Civilizations in Istanbul from June 2nd to the 6th 2008.

Let’s assume a Democratic victory in November. Against the odds, since we have chosen a candidate with a very strong appeal to what is probably a minority of the population. But the Democratic Party, whoever its candidate, may, this time have a strong enough appeal itself, given the recession, given the war, to win majority support. So Obama enters the White House, and what happens? Liberal Internationalism is the name that (some of) his advisors and various friendly intellectuals have chosen for what they hope will be his foreign policy. So, what does liberal internationalism mean?

Here is a list of some of the things it might mean, though every item on my list comes with a big question mark. Obama is not running so far with anything like a full and coherent program for US foreign policy (or, for what that matter, US domestic policy). So here’s my list.

1) The end of Bush’s unilateralism, at least in the form of endless confrontation. American diplomats will be doing a lot of traveling and a lot of talking if Obama wins. First of all in Europe with our natural allies, but not only there. The policy of not talking to enemies will be explicitly rejected. We will be talking to any enemy who is prepared to talk to us – I mean to any enemy state, Iran obviously the first candidate. The policy with regard to terrorist organizations will not change. Here I am just repeating what Obama has said and has said pretty forcefully.

2) A new position on global warming and opening to Kyoto, maybe with Al Gore in charge. I think that is fairly certain.

3) Maybe some indication of a willingness to join the International Criminal Court, though still with reservations to protect American soldiers from what are called “political” prosecution. I don’t think that Obama will take on the Pentagon for the sake of membership in the ICC. Remember that Clinton also would have joined except for opposition from the military establishment. In fact the Clinton people in Rome tried to work out the arrangements for the ICC, but then they were not able to actually join the Court, because Clinton was in the middle of the impeachment crisis and had no political capital to spend on that issue.

4) A different approach to the World Trade Organization and to trade issues generally, though how different is radically unclear. There will be, perhaps, a new interest in treaties that include provisions for workers’ rights, environmental protection, etc. But economists are economists and Obama’s advisors are not all that far from the neo-liberal free trade, Washington consensus. They are not, so far as I can see, the advocates of a global social democracy. Left economists will still be critics from the outside, though they may get a hearing in Washington that they haven’t had these last eight years or even sixteen years.

5) A stronger (rhetorically stronger or stronger in practice?) commitment to “the responsibility to protect” in places like Darfur or Myanmar – though the new administration is not going to be sending American troops into any countries where we are not already engaged. So who else might be ready to send troops? If anyone is ready, the United States under Obama might be probably be willing to support, help to pay for, help to equip, help to transport, the troops.

6) A clear – I hope – recognition that the “war” against terrorism is mostly police work and political work, that it requires cooperation among many countries and that it can be and should be conducted within constitutional constraints. There will be a liberal attorney general and a different attitude towards the Constitution and towards the struggle against terrorism in the new administration. I would expect Guantanamo to be shut down, the torture memos repudiated, “renditions” terminated and some trials of accused terrorists moved from military to civilian courts. But the new administration will not give up clandestine activity, the war in the shadows, the long war. I would hope for a more coherent, nuanced, ideological commitment to the ongoing struggle against terrorist organizations – a way of drawing the lines more subtle, smarter than Bush’s black-white, righteous-evil, us-them discourse. But don’t count on it.

7) A withdrawal, as pledged, from Iraq? Here the question mark is bigger than in any of the other cases. Will there be a withdrawal as pledged from Iraq? The commitment of both candidates (of Hillary and even more clearly of Obama) and of the leading Democrats in Congress to withdraw is so clear, so strongly expressed, that it’s hard to see how they can back off, and yet I think that they will back off. I find it difficult to imagine the US withdrawal on the Obama schedule ¬– starting right away, everyone out in 16 months. Does Obama include all the private contractors and all the people who have worked with us and would be at risk when we leave? That doubles or triples the number. Even logistically probably it can’t be done in 16 months and almost certainly it won’t be. A formal policy of disengagement will certainly be announced, but in practice the disengagement will be very slow, with a lot of pauses, accompanied by negotiations with Iran and Syria aimed at providing cover for an eventual pull-out. But will Iran and Syria cooperate? Crucially, will Iran cooperate? Do the Iranians want us to leave in a decent way, with what US officers would regard as their honor intact? Probably not. Anyway, in the short run, Obama will find that the Kurds don’t want us to leave, the Sunni chiefs don’t want us to leave, the Shi’ite government definitely doesn’t want us to leave, the Kuwaitis, the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Israelis and the Turks don’t want us to leave. At least not to leave on the Obama schedule. So the trick will be to leave and not leave at the same time. Nothing about Iraq has been pretty and nothing will be pretty in the foreseeable future.

8) But some troops withdrawal from Iraq will be necessary, because the Democrats are really committed to a stronger effort in Afghanistan, which means more troops going there. More Americans troops going there and more troops from Europe too – or so the Democrats hope – and this might be the place to say that no new American foreign policy will be successful or sustainable unless the administration finds European partners who are prepared, along with the United States, to take some degree of responsibility for the way the world goes. American multilateralism – Afghanistan is just an example – is going to require a lot of work from the other sides, probably a lot more work than our European allies may currently have in mind.

9) A diplomatic initiative in Israel/Palestine, and also in the larger Israel/Arab conflict. I assume that the current negotiations, including the new talks between Israel and Syria, will be ongoing and nothing will be settled by January 2009. So a Democratic administration will be more engaged in the “process” – Obama promised that speaking to Aipac, that they will be engaged from the first day – but I doubt that they will be engaged in significantly different ways. Most crucially, Obama is not going to force or to try to force an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, until/unless it is clear that rockets won’t be aimed at Tel Aviv from the “liberated” West Bank, and it’s very hard to see how progress on that front can be made with a frighteningly weak Palestine Authority, along with a weak Israeli government, and the still-growing strength of Islamic zealots in Gaza, in Palestine generally and in Lebanon. I would expect a lot of rushing around and no great advance. But this is the place where there might be some real surprises. One possible surprise was described by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. Talking about the renewal of the Jordanian option, some kind of Jordanian trusteeship on the West Bank, which would enable Israelis to withdraw with a superior guarantee that could be reliable.

So, the US will look a lot better if there is an Obama presidency, and if there is a large Democratic majority in congress. But America has less power and a diminished authority today compared to the Clinton years. And the world is even more recalcitrant now than it was then. A different American foreign policy, that I have just described, may not make a big difference, and it won’t make a big difference unless it is accompanied/supported by different policies in other parts of the world.

Michael Walzer is one of America’s leading political philosophers and public intellectuals. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he is co-editor of the political-intellectual quarterly Dissent.