"At the U.N., Many Hope for an Obama Win"

"A lot of bad feeling" about the past eight years."
William Luers of the United Nations Association
(Neilson Barnard - Getty Images)

Source: Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, October 26, 2008

I quote:

An informal survey of more than two dozen U.N. staff members and foreign delegates showed that the overwhelming majority would prefer that Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, saying they think that the Democrat would usher in a new agenda of multilateralism after an era marked by Republican disdain for the world body.

Obama supporters hail from Russia, Canada, France, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Indonesia and elsewhere. One American employee here seemed puzzled that he was being asked whether Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was even a consideration. "Obama was and is unstoppable," the official said. "Please, God, let him win," he added.

Comment: My own impression is that the U.S. foreign policy experts that I know, as well as the people from the international community with whom I have worked, as well as my family members who are citizens for foreign countries overwhelmingly support Obama.

In part this is a response to his life history and that of his parents, in part it is a response to the wisdom of his foreign policy pronouncements over the past several years, in part it is a response to the negative views of the foreign policy of the Republcan administration over the past eight years (and of the earlier Republican Congressional leaders) and in part it is due to distrust of McCain's views and temperment. Some might suggest that we ignore the views of the international community, but I think they are enough to strongly support Obama's foreign policy credentials. JAD