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My Priorities if I Were the President of the United States: Peace, Dignity and Prosperity

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            "If the United Nations once admits that international disputes can be settled by using force, then we will have destroyed the foundation of the organization and our best hope of establishing a world order."

Dwight D. Eisenhower

It has been customary for the United States to discard the United Nations when it does not play to the American will. In 2002, for example, the Disarmament and International Security Committee of the UN adopted a resolution that demanded more stringent measures to halt the militarization of the space, and another one that reaffirmed the Geneva Protocol of 1925 against the use of toxic gases and bacteriological warfare. Both resolutions were approved unanimously with two abstentions: the United States and Israel. In practice, the American abstention is equivalent to a veto.  

            Since the 1960s, the United States has been leading in vetoes to UN Security Council resolutions; Great Britain is in second place, and France and Russia much more behind. In practice, this Washington -s posture leads to the weakening of the resolutions that it disagrees or leaves completely out of the agenda themes of vital importance.

            Furthermore, in the United States the media usually minimizes the habitual use of the veto from the United States whereas sometimes it is also acclaimed as a matter of principle as though Washington is being attacked by everybody. However, what is not seen and said by the media is that Washington -s posture undermines the legitimacy and credibility of the United Nations, as it is evidently happening. Nonetheless, what is seen as a real problem is the reluctance of other nations to follow Washington -s arrogance and leadership (orders) which does not help to make more friends in the world. Again, the key question is: should we be making war or love with our neighbours?

The Iran-Iraq "Problem"

A good example of what I just stated above is the debate in the United Nations about the future of Iraq where Washington has insisted in acting unilaterally by imposing a client state undermining one more time the legitimacy of the world order. As the new president of the United States, I repeat again, I will align the overwhelming will of the American people and of the world with regard to Iraq and many other vital issues to the new foreign policy initiatives I will implement, based on peace (self-knowledge), dignity and prosperity for all, which is the best conduit to regain the respect that the United States once had with the rest of the world.

            With regard to Iran, the disaster seems imminent with the United States. Before 1979 when the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlevi was in power, Washington vigorously supported his nuclear programs. Today, the usual affirmation is that Iran does not need nuclear energy and thus they must be developing a secret nuclear weapons program. "For a gas producer of a large scale like Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of its resources", wrote Henry Kissinger in the Washington Post in 2005. However, thirty years ago as a Secretary of State for president Gerald Ford, he argued that "the introduction of nuclear energy in Iran will provide the increasing resource needs for the Iranian economy and will liberate the gas reserves left over for exports or for its conversion in petrochemical products." When he was asked about his change of opinion, Kissinger responded "Iran was an ally at that time."

            The main point to be made about the above historical facts is that Iran has been being tormented by the United States and its allies for more than fifty years when a coup d'Ã ©tat by the United States and the United Kingdom overthrew the parliamentarian government and imposed the Shah who governed with an iron fist until he was ousted by a popular rebellion in 1979, not without compiling all the human rights atrocities committed by the Shah that were ignored by the media and supported by Washington. Nevertheless, what it is also known is that Mohammad Khatami proposed "a program for a diplomatic process designed to solve all the bilateral differences between the United States and Iran," but the Bush administration once again did not accept Iran -s offer.

            As the new president of the United States, I will propose to the American people to abide to the proposal made in 2003 by Mohamed ElBaradei, Director of the International Atomic Agency to implement a treaty for the reduction of fissile material (FISSBAN), otherwise in my opinion, the survival of the species will not be brilliant. Today, as far as I know, this proposal has been accepted by only one country: Iran in February of 2006 in an interview with Alà Larijani an Iranian nuclear arms negotiator by a French radio station. Last but not least, a final crucial step would be for the United States to abide by Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that requires to all the nuclear states to undertake efforts of "good faith" to eliminate nuclear weapons as it was proclaimed by the World Court. So far, none of the nuclear states have abided to this obligation, including the Unites States. As the new president of the United States, I will make sure, with the consent of the American people and the rest of the world, that the only solution regarding Iran is a negotiable solution and not a military one which would be not only unpredictable but unconceivable.

The Domestic Arena

We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

Louis D. Brandeis, LL.B. 1877,
quoted in Labor, October 14, 1941

 

As the new president of the United States I will analyze with the American people the veracity, relevance, and investigative insights of M.I.T. professor and activist Noam Chomsky, including his statement that states that among the hardest tasks that anyone can undertake is to look honestly in the mirror and recognize that the United States have been sharing some of the characteristics of "failed states" for quite a long time which have had many undesirable effects around the world. A failed state according to Noam Chomsky is a country which is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens from violence and perhaps even destruction. Another is its tendency to regard itself as beyond the reach of domestic or international law, and hence to carry out aggression and violence. And if the failed state has a democratic form, the country suffers from a serious "democratic deficit" that deprives its formal democratic institutions of meaningful substance. Moreover, in light of all of the above discussions, as the new president of the United States I will present to the American people my own vision about how the government should interact with other governments of the world, including how we should interact with industry and academia today and in the future if we want to have a more durable peace, dignity and prosperity for all mankind.

Furthermore, as new president of the United States, I will address the most recent economic figures in the United States just released last July of 2010 by economist Emmanuel Saez from the University of California, Department of Economics, which have clearly revealed for example, that 80% of the income created in the U.S. the last 80 years went to the 1% of the population (the super rich), and that 50% of the U.S. income went to the 5% of the U.S. population. The economic figures also show that from 1993-2008 average income real annual growth was only 1.30%, top 1% income annual growth was 3.94%, bottom 99% income real annual growth was 0.75% and the fraction of total growth (or loss) captured by the top 1% was 52%. Moreover, the ratio of the highest salary to the lowest is 600: 1 in the United States as opposed to the UK 20:1, Japan 15:1, Germany 14:1, France 12:1 and Sweden 11:1.This means that in the United States "raining (economic benefits) is defying the laws of nature", that is, in the United States is raining from the bottom up. All these economic and social facts were also recently addressed by Senator Sanders from Vermont in the floor of the Senate as well. Moreover, in a recent poll, 80% of the American people also believe that the American government is not working for the benefit of society either.

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Harvard university graduate, international educator, management lecturer, Executive Global Partner (EGP) for the Academy of Business Strategy (UK), member of the Harvard Club of France and the Harvard Club of Spain, fully bilingual in English and (more...)
 
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