The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir

by Samantha Power

I handed him the memo I had prepared, which included a history of humanitarianism, an account of the relationship between human rights and conflict, and thoughts on violence from Hume, Kant, Martin Luther King, Jr., Niebuhr, and Henry Dunant, the founder of the International Committee for the Red Cross. Obama stayed up through the night, starting a new speech from scratch and developing an elaborate, deeply original, handwritten draft on a yellow legal pad. In the morning, he called Jon, Ben, and me into the Oval to walk us through what he had done. The President had produced a piece of rhetoric that embraced contradictions that most politicians blew past. He rejected pacifism in the face of evil and aggression; at the same time, he insisted that while soldiers could achieve great glory, “war itself is never glorious.” He criticized the “reflexive suspicion” toward the United States and the use of military force prevalent in Europe, defending America’s record in underwriting the global order and the modern-day peace in Germany, Korea, and the Balkans. “I understand why war is not popular,” Obama had written. “But I also know this: the belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility.”