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Op-Ed: Obama’s Foreign Policy Has Moved Us Toward Reason

Published

10 years ago

March 16, 2016

As Barack Obama’s presidency counts down its last months, amid the raucous babble of the Republican presidential debate, people are beginning to realize how much we will miss Obama’s leadership.

He has served with dignity and grace, increasingly rare attributes in American politics. His family has exhibited the values that Americans embrace. He has brought the economy back from the freefall he inherited.

Republicans, of course, scorn all things Obama, with particular emphasis on his foreign policy. They argue that he’s destroyed our nation’s credibility, gutted our military and fostered the spread of terror. The din covers the emptiness of the argument.

In reality, Obama’s foreign policy will be remembered as making a start toward reason. His record, of course, is complex. The president has enjoyed some remarkable successes — taking out Osama bin Laden, traducing al-Qaida, the nuclear deal with Iran, normalization of relations with Cuba (and thus with other neighbors across the hemisphere).

He’s also met with frustrations as well. He was unable to extract us from Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Syria and Libya.

He failed to close Guantanamo. He’s also asserted, dangerously, unprecedented executive prerogatives in the use of drones, assassination, the hunting of whistle-blowers, mass surveillance and more.

But Obama’s biggest legacy is his effort to turn America away from the interventionist appetites of both the neo-conservatives and the “indispensable nation” liberal activists. In a remarkable set of interviews with Jeffry Goldberg in the Atlantic, Obama argues that while the United States must lead, it cannot police the world. We must be both “hardheaded” and “big hearted.”

We have to be clear about our real security concerns, learn to pick our spots, and not allow ourselves to be dragged into every civil war or humanitarian crisis.

The president is clear — and clearly right — on the priority of threats facing the U.S. Despite the popular terrors about terror, he understands that the Islamic State is not an existential threat to the U.S. In contrast, climate change potentially threatens the world if we don’t act to counter it.

Similarly, the president argues that the Middle East is no longer terribly important to U.S. interests, particularly with our increasing energy independence. The U.S.-China relationship, in contrast, is the “most critical.” Sustaining a peaceful rise of China that will make it a partner in securing international order is far more important to our security than all of the civil wars in the Middle East.

Obama believes, against the clamor of an interventionist foreign policy establishment, that overextension in the Middle East is far more destructive than restraint in the region.

As his adviser Ben Rhodes summarizes, the president’s view is that “overextension in the Middle East will ultimately harm our economy, harm our ability to look for other opportunities and to deal with other challenges, and, most important, endanger the lives of American service members for reasons that are not in the direct American national-security interest.”

According to Goldberg, Obama also has a common sense position about Putin. He sees Russia as weak, not strong, but understands that it has direct security concerns about Ukraine and Georgia on its border. That fact is, as Obama says, the U.S. is not going to war over Ukraine.

Russia is prepared to do that. “People respond to what their imperatives are, and if it’s very important to somebody and it’s not that important to us, they know that and we know that.” Mexico has had to learn to live with the United States; Ukraine similarly has to learn to live with Russia.

This sounds like common sense, but it challenges the consensus of the foreign policy establishment that believes the U.S. is the only superpower and can “win,” as Donald Trump would say, simply by flexing its muscles. But of course they argue, we must be prepared to maintain credibility and strike if someone calls our bluff. Obama clearly understands the dangers of this posture.

Obama has made mistakes, as any president does. But he has come to understand the limits of U.S. power to direct global events, even as he realizes the importance of U.S. leadership to force global action. He calls on us to understand our limits and to set real priorities.

He does this in the face of a national security state that is permanently engaged across the world, in the face of liberal and conservative interventionists who scorn common sense as weakness, and in the face of allies who are happy to have the U.S. carry the load.

Listen to the posturing and the bloviating of the Republican contenders for the presidency. Listen to the drone of the think tankers and academics calling for escalation without thinking of consequences.

It doesn’t take long to realize that how much we should value the first steps that President Obama has taken toward reason.

Oakland Post

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Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

7 months ago

June 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Special to The Post

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department (Oakland HCD) announced its awardees for the 2024-2025 New Construction of Multifamily Affordable Housing Notice of Funding Availability (New Construction NOFA) today Five permanently affordable housing developments received awards out of 24 applications received by the Department, with award amounts ranging from $7 million to $28 million.

In a statement released on Jan. 16, Oakland’s HCD stated, “Five New Construction Multifamily Affordable Housing Development projects awarded a total of $80.5 million to develop 583 affordable rental homes throughout Oakland. Awardees will leverage the City’s investments to apply for funding from the state and private entities.”

In December, the office of Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 City Councilmember, worked with HCD to allocate an additional $10 Million from Measure U to the funding pool. The legislation also readopted various capital improvement projects including street paving and upgrades to public facilities.

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is the media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

12 months ago

January 30, 2025

Oakland Post

Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 city councilmember. File photo.

Special to The Post

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units, including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

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Alameda County

Oakland Acquisition Company’s Acquisition of County’s Interest in Coliseum Property on the Verge of Completion

The Board of Supervisors is committed to closing the deal expeditiously, and County staff have worked tirelessly to move the deal forward on mutually agreeable terms. The parties are down to the final details and, with the cooperation of OAC and Coliseum Way Partners, LLC, the Board will take a public vote at an upcoming meeting to seal this transaction.

Published

1 year ago

January 11, 2025

Oakland Post

Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Haubert. Official photo.

Special to The Post

The County of Alameda announced this week that a deal allowing the Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, (“OAC”) to acquire the County’s 50% undivided interest in the Oakland- Alameda County Coliseum complex is in the final stages of completion.

Oakland has already finalized a purchase and sale agreement with OAC for its interest in the property. OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two longstanding goals of the County:

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and
The County will be out of the sports and entertainment business, free to focus and rededicate resources to its core safety net

In an October 2024 press release from the City of Oakland, the former Oakland mayor described the sale of its 50% interest in the property as an “historic achievement” stating that the transaction will “continue to pay dividends for generations to come.”

The Board of Supervisors is pleased to facilitate single-entity ownership of this property uniquely centered in a corridor of East Oakland that has amazing potential.

“The County is committed to bringing its negotiations with OAC to a close,” said Board President David Haubert.