Barack Obama's Vision of American Foreign Policy: Telegraph
Sunday, September 27, 2009 at 5:50PM 
US President Barack Obama, right, proposes a toast with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Photo: EPA Only three years ago, the bristling, moustached figure of John Bolton prowled the corridors of the United Nations as America's Ambassador to an organisation he wholeheartedly despised.
"There is no such thing as the United Nations," he bluntly declared. "There is only the international community – which can only be led by the only remaining superpower." If the UN's Manhattan tower block were to lose 10 storeys, said Mr Bolton, this "wouldn't make a bit of difference".
This week, President Barack Obama spent the best part of two days inside the very building whose spectacular destruction would have delighted Mr Bolton. For the first time, an American president personally chaired a session of the Security Council; earlier he had laid out his vision of American foreign policy before the UN General Assembly.
This performance took Mr Obama's rhetorical idealism to a new level. Speaking from the very podium where his predecessor, George W Bush, had threatened to invade Iraq, with or without the UN's approval, the President painted a picture of a harmonious world where no country would ride roughshod over another. more
Reader Comments