Lucia

de Vernai

Read Lucia's bio and previous columns

March 17, 2008

If Obama Wants to Highlight International Priorities, How About AIDS?

In a refreshing turn of events, last week Barack Obama went for an international relations attack with a twist, challenging Hillary Clinton’s claim that she played a major conflict resolution role in Northern Ireland. Most Americans don’t know that there are two Irelands. What better way to ever-so-subtly drop a hint of his global awareness and worldly vision?

But Ireland is not the situation crying out for U.S. intervention in the world.

Contrary to what we would like to think of our fearless leaders, American politicians’ input, or lack thereof, is largely inconsequential there. The conflict in Northern Ireland has had many international figures – Bono, Pope John Paul II, not to mention top-notch Scandinavian negotiators – put considerable time and effort into quelling the misunderstandings between Catholics and Protestants.

Our involvement is not going to make or break the solution there. But it might make the difference in finally getting the worldwide AIDS epidemic under control.

AIDS, the most pressing international problem the future leadership of the U.S. will face, has only one side to back. Negotiators, translators and ambassadors are pointless and no trade sanction or threat of military action will lead to progress. And finger pointing, or nitpicking, as Sen. Clinton deemed it, will get us any closer to ending the global AIDS crisis.

The past seven years are proof that a single cause can obscure other priorities. A public capable of seeing only with tunnel vision needs leadership that will not operate on the principle of “out of sight, out of mind” – the fate AIDS programs met in this century.

Unfortunately, solutions come at a much slower pace than the next military, humanitarian or environmental crises. The emergency of AIDS proliferation that became a crusade to everyone from fashion designers to African dictators in the 1990s no longer seems as interesting or pressing.

That’s not to say that, while we got distracted by phantom WMDs and homeless polar bears, the AIDS crisis went away. Or that decision-making has been left in the hands of good souls like Archbishop Desmond Tutu. No, independent research groups estimate that in 2007 close to 2.5 million people became infected with HIV and 2.1 million died from AIDS. Meanwhile, the Senate Foreign Relations committee, when voting on a de Vernai to provide a funding for President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, rejected California Sen. Barbara Boxer’s amendment to add family planning.

Even if Hillary Clinton had a poor record of engaging in unsolicited American conflict resolution, U.S. and Northern Irish constituents (and the rest of the world) will probably not hold it against her.

And if Obama is set on exposing her weaknesses in international relations, going after sustained commitment to AIDS funding may be more productive in uniting voters against her. Historically, taking sides in the “humans versus deadly illness” battle is seen as more desirable than in “Protestants versus Catholics.” If Obama can prove Clinton’s negligence in an area that voters support, he may gain leverage in an area Clinton has hailed as her advantage.

Candidates’ choice of attack speaks more of them than their opponent. When Obama claims that Clinton’s role was miniscule – the American public ought to ask not “Why wasn’t Clinton more involved?” but “Why, of all the international problems, does Obama think that a religious and political one is more pressing than any humanitarian conflict?”

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