Council on Foreign Relations speech summary

The campaign released a memo to reporters on the speech that Gov. Dean gave to the CFR today. In it, they summarized the message's key points as well as the foreign policy of a Dean Administration. The key points:

- Our foreign and military policy must restore American leadership in the world. We need to turn back to policies that have America leading the world rather than pitting America against the world.

- We should not be dividing the world into us versus them, but rallying the world around fundamental principles of decency, responsibility, freedom and mutual respect.

- We must lead by example, not by force; we must continue to be the light unto the nations - setting a moral example through our behavior.

- While we must be prepared and ready to use force, it must be to defend against actual or imminent threat to ourselves or our friends and allies and, in concert with others, to deal with grave humanitarian crises.

- The Bush administration has abandoned a principle that has guided us for 225 years: that preemptive force should be used only against an imminent threat. This administration has changed that policy and made the world a more dangerous - not a safer - place.

The Dean foreign policy:

In restoring principled and multilateral American leadership, Dean's foreign policy would seek to achieve four goals:

(1) Defeat the threat posed by terrorists, tyrants and technologies of mass destruction - but by working with others, not alone.

(2) Strengthen bonds with other countries - conducting foreign policy by posse is short-sighted; our destinies are all intertwined

(3) Spread the benefits of economic growth - middle class democracies don't produce terrorists - fair trade: open up markets but ensuring protections for workers, the environment

(4) Deal with crises threatening sustainability of life on the planet - global warming and pollution, diseases like AIDS, population growth