WASHINGTON (AP) -- Based on his Senate history, Barack Obama as president would likely push to expand human rights and reduce poverty abroad using cooperation rather than confrontation. If foreign events permit.
Aside from his vigorous opposition to the Iraq war, Obama spent more of his time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on speeches and inspirational trips than on investigations and aggressive oversight. He was a junior senator with an agreeable manner who was just beginning to cut his teeth on foreign policy issues when he decided to run for president.
Since he took office in 2005, much of Obama's work attracted little, if any, attention because of the nation's focus on the Iraq war. Obama pushed through legislation that condemned violence by the Zimbabwe government, for example. He helped raise awareness about Darfur and called on the administration to do more to reduce global poverty.
In 2005, he traveled with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., to Russian nuclear sites. In 2006, he visited the Middle East and Africa, where he and his wife publicly took HIV tests in Kenya to encourage citizens there to do the same.
The young senator's approach to issues attracted the attention of Lugar, the committee's senior Republican. After their visit to former Soviet states, the two co-sponsored legislation aimed at making it easier to detect and destroy weapons stockpiles. More recently, Lugar signed on as co-sponsor of Obama's anti-poverty proposal.
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