Common Sense and Foreign Policy - by John Stempel

[BridgeTheGap]

Author says foreign policy needs finesse, not force - Herald Leader

John Stempel insists that the title of his new book, Common Sense and Foreign Policy, is not an oxymoron, even if it seems like it lately.

In fact, the veteran U.S. diplomat, senior professor and former director of the University of Kentucky's Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce is optimistic that President-elect Barack Obama can repair some of the damage wrought by the Bush Administration's so-called neoconservatives.
"What will definitely be gone is American unilateralism — the idea that we're so powerful we can do whatever we want," said Stempel, who is among 220 authors who will be signing books Saturday at the Kentucky Book Fair in the Frankfort Convention Center. "The neoconservatives will be anathema — as they deserve to be."

At a recent signing party for the book (The Clark Group, $29.95), Stempel discussed what he thinks is needed to repair America's relationships around the world. Mainly, he said, leaders must stop the "with us or against us" bluster of the Bush years and return to traditional principles of international cooperation and diplomacy — "the art of letting the other fellow have it your way."
More: http://www.kentucky.com/785/story/591536.html