Chasing the Flame (and Obama’s Foreign Policy)

While everyone is thoroughly engaged in the VP sweepstakes, I thought I’d offer a few words about Chasing the Flame, Samantha Power’s absorbing biography of murdered U.N. diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, which I’ve recently finished.

I have to admit from the outset that it’s difficult for me to write objectively about Samantha Power: She has written extensively on my favorite author, Hannah Arendt, worked for Barack Obama and is originally from my favorite town in the world, Dublin (I’m not even going to comment on her physical appearance, but damn you, Cass Sunstein).

The book is a biography of one person, but it also reads as a history of post-war humanitarian intervention. The irrepressible Vieira de Mello ends up at the center of most of the world’s crises with an almost Forrest Gumpian proclivity. There is nearly everything in here for a Hollywood biopic: war, far-flung locations, tragedy and, of course, sex (it’s no surprise that “Hotel Rwanda” director Terry George is set to direct a forthcoming film based on the book).

The book follows the Brazilian-born Vieira de Mello’s 34-year service with the U.N. as he is deployed in Sudan, Cyprus, Lebanon, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, East Timor and finally Iraq. At each stop Vieira de Mello is deployed with scant resources, little helpful guidance and plenty of hostile actors. Fans of the U.N. may have their enthusiasm tempered by the mixed results of these missions. However, by the time the Iraq war comes, there is no one in the world who knows more about the plethora of challenges facing a country after a war than Vieira de Mello, yet he is tragically sidelined and marginalized by the Coalitional Provisional Authority (CPA) in his role as Special Representative of the Secretary General. Ironically, the U.N. was repeatedly taunted by the Bush administration in the run-up to the war that it would become irrelevant unless it took action against Iraq, yet the administration ignored all the U.N.’s relevant experience in repairing war-torn countries.

The Bush administration just might have been able to pull off the transition in Iraq (though still a long shot) if they had Vieira de Mello directing the operation. Vieira de Mello hectored the CPA incessantly to move more quickly to hand over power to the Iraqis while the country was relatively calm. As the CPA stalled and fumbled around, the situation in Iraq deteriorates and Vieira de Mello’s service in Iraq and his own life ends with his death at the hands of a suicide bomber in 2003 and marks a real turning point in the country’s future and descent into violence.

Finally, I’m sure many folks will want to know what insight they can gain from the book into how Power’s thinking may steer Obama’s foreign policy. There is a whole chapter dedicated to lessons from Vieira de Mello’s life that seems like the basis for an Obama foreign policy toward humanitarian crises. Powers gives some deserved attention to both theoretical concepts, like the value of human dignity, as well as to the importance of leaving room for practical adjustments (something Vieira de Mello constantly wanted to do as he battled the wishes of the rule-obsessed U.N. bureaucracy). Needless to say, even though she may have been exiled from the campaign, I’m hoping there will be plenty of Samantha Power’s (and Sergio Vieira de Mello’s) wisdom in an Obama administration.

Updated: There is a wonderful new blog dedicated to Sergio Vieira de Mello that was launched this Tuesday, the five-year anniversary of Vieira de Mello’s death, called www.chasingtheflame.org. There is a lot of great material on there for all you fans of Vieira de Mello.

The views expressed in this blog do not represent the views or opinions of Generations United.