Obama looks to multilateral solutions

By Liu Dong

The US must harness both diplomatic and military strengths and highlight international collaboration in forging a new "international order," President Barack Obama stressed Saturday as he presented a foreign policy sketch, which Chinese analysts said is a marked deviation from the Bush administration's unilateral offensives.

"The burdens of this century cannot fall on our soldiers alone, it also cannot fall on American shoulders alone," Obama said in an address delivered to roughly 1,000 graduating cadets at the US Military Academy at West Point.

Obama, acknowledging that national might had been sapped by "overextending our power," underscored the need to consolidate the old coalitions, ally new partners in championing the constitution of a new global regime.

"We are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system," he said. "But America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of cooperation."

Obama's remarks came ahead of next week's release of a new National Security Strategy.

"Obama's emphasis on global cooperation marks a substantial progress from the Bush security doctrine to launch preemptive strikes and contributes to smoothing the international resentment against its 2003 unauthorized Iraq war, creating favorable conditions for the future tackling of international cruxes," Jia Qingguo, deputy dean of the School of International Studies at Peking University, told the Global Times.

The speech, issued as the nuclear-centered, US-Iran tussle intensifies, serves to send a clear signal to the world that Obama differs from his predecessor's rash military strike, Yin Gang, an Iran expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

"Obama intends to gesture to the international community that it has made strenuous efforts in rallying international support by a succession of intensive diplomatic initiatives. The US had spearheaded the laborious meditation process to comprise diversified interest appeals of concerned parities in hammering out draft sanctions. Obama … shows that the US has devoted great diplomatic efforts to forging a united front on levying penalties instead of pushing strikes," Yin said.

However, Obama has adopted a tactical move by leaving wiggle room, Yin stressed.

"His emphasis on a combination of diplomacy and military action signals the US' mixed choices in addressing the Iran issue," Yin said.

"The sanctions serve to display the US' bottom line on cooperation. US authorities will not root out possible attacks if the line is crossed," Yin added.