Before the largest audience ever assembled for a Fares Lecture, New York Senator and former First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke at the annual Issam M. Fares Lecture yesterday afternoon.
Her lecture, titled "Policy Challenges in the Eastern Mediterranean After the Presidential Election," emphasized the necessity of fostering healthy dialogues regarding both domestic and international issues.
Before Clinton's speech, University President Larry Bacow welcomed some 2,300 Tufts students, faculty members, visitors, and dignitaries to the Gantcher Family Sports and Convocation Center.
"Through the generosity of the Fares family, Tufts continues to bring leadership on exploring dialogue relating to the Middle East," Bacow said.
After brief remarks by Leila Fawaz, founding director of Tufts' Fares Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and His Excellency Issam Fares, successful businessman and deputy prime minister of Lebanon, Clinton took to the podium to enthusiastic applause from the audience.
She began by expressing the wish "that I were here speaking about the prospect of a Middle Eastern foreign policy from the perspective of a President Kerry," a remark which elicited hearty clapping from the college-aged crowd.
But Clinton said next that partisanship must be avoided if serious conflicts like those in the Middle East are ever to be resolved.
All countries "have a stake in the great conflicts [occurring in the Middle East], but the U.S. has more at stake and more capacity than most to shape the region's outcome," she said.
A consistent theme of Clinton's speech was that U.S. foreign policy should use dialogue between opposing parties to work towards peace. "We need to change our ways of thinking first, and then act on that thinking. [Middle Eastern and American] fates are inextricably bound together," she said.
Clinton's discussion jumped from country to country, but she began by insisting that the entire Middle East region work to socially and politically enfranchise women. "Human rights are women's rights," she said.
Though some Middle Eastern nations have taken small steps in the right direction, Clinton said women and girls are consistently marginalized in all aspects of society.
"When we look at the political, economic and strategic position in the Middle East today, it's obvious that progress cannot be made if there is an unwillingness to include half the population of these countries," she said.
Clinton described herself as "one of the early voices speaking out against the treatment of women by the Taliban in the 1990s," and said democratizing the Middle East required "educating women and girls to the fullest of their abilities."
Moving on to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Clinton gave recommendations on the twilight of the Yassar Arafat era. "We hope and pray that it is a peaceful transition for the Palestinian people," she said.
Hours after her speech, a French military hospital announced that Arafat had died while in intensive care.
Clinton said Arafat's impending death would offer Palestinians another chance to engage in serious, meaningful and effective dialogue with the Israelis. Successful negotiations will still largely depend on U.S. involvement in the process, however. "It is now time for President Bush to become engaged," she said.
Turning her attention next to Iraq, Clinton called U.S. soldiers there an "extraordinary, exemplary group of Americans" and said "we owe it to them to develop a policy that works."
Clinton said the United States needs a "fresh start in Iraq" and that Bush should take advantage of his re-election to try new policies and work anew with allies.
The quickest, most surefire way to turn around the situation in Iraq would be through multilateral cooperation, she said, again stressing the importance of dialogue within the international community. "It is important to bring in more people from around the world [to Iraq]," she said.
"We're in [Iraq] for the long haul, and we need to create enough safety in the region to run a successful, legitimate January election," Clinton said. "We know we cannot afford to fail in Iraq, and no nation is safe if Iraq falls into chaos."
In an obvious dig at Bush's pre-war assertion that Iraq was an imminent threat, Clinton said that today "Iran is the place that many in the [Bush] administration thought Iraq was. This time the weapons really are there."
Clinton's comments on Iran took the form of a warning - she said "a nuclear-equipped Iran would shake the political system [in the Middle East] like a 7.0 earthquake." Instability in this region would threaten security worldwide, she said.
"I have yet to understand the current administration's policy toward countries like Iran and North Korea," Clinton said, explaining that some of the world's most potentially dangerous countries are being virtually ignored by the White House.
"During the Cold War, every U.S. president fostered dialogue with the Kremlin, and this was at a time when the Soviet Union had nuclear missiles pointed at all of our major cities," Clinton said, concluding that the Bush administration's lack of contact with Iran was inexplicable.
"We need to impress on [Iran] the highly adverse consequences to continuing a program of nuclear proliferation," she said. "Short of multilateralism and dialogue, I see no other short-term possibility to stop Iran's nuclear plans."
Clinton referred to Turkey as another major player in the future of the Middle East. "Turkey is at the front lines in the battle against extremist Islamic terrorism," she said. "The U.S.' future is linked with Turkey's."
The United States should fully support Turkey's inclusion into the European Union, she said, and predicted that should Turkey's bid be rejected by the EU, it would almost certainly be taken as a grievous insult to the Islamic communities worldwide.
"This would only serve as fodder for anti-Western Islamic terrorists," Clinton said.
Clinton concluded her speech by saying, "We are at a crossroads. We cannot, must not, turn our backs on the Middle East. We must once again become a voice for freedom and peace in that region."
Should the United States fail in this endeavor, Clinton said there could be "horrible consequences," not only for the Middle East, but for the world.
As the audience rose for a standing ovation, Clinton said, "I can only hope that this administration will be guided by reality and evidence, not ideology and partisanship."
Bacow then read three pre-selected questions from a student, a professor, and an administrator.
One question regarded "wedge issues," particularly gay marriage and its effect on dividing the electorate in favor of Republicans candidates. Clinton drew upon the Bible in her answer, saying "no one who reads the New Testament can ignore the fact that Jesus had a lot more to say about how we should treat the poor than some wedge issues of the campaign, like gay marriage."
Clinton spoke briefly about domestic issues, and smiled when asked what her one wish for the U.S. health care system would be: "start over," was the reply.
"While we see the statistics [regarding health care] continuously getting worse, there is still a huge vested interest in keeping this dysfunctional system just as it is," she said.
Clinton said she admired some of Kerry's ideas on health care but deplored the policies of the current administration. "So I guess my wish is that they'll be unsuccessful," she said, concluding the session to great applause.
Mary Jeka, vice president of University Relations, said she was extremely pleased with the lecture. "It was terrific to have a very prominent woman," Jeka said.
Jeka said Clinton's lecture was actually scheduled for last spring, but that the senator asked instead to speak after the presidential election due to temporary time constraints.
It is "unclear" whether there will be a second Fares lecture this year to make up for the one missed last year, Jeka said.
Because Clinton is an active member of the U.S. Senate, she is unable to collect speaker's fees. Jeka said the money which the Fares Foundation would have spent on her fee was instead given to an unspecified charity.
