Martin Indyk is a noted authority on Middle East affairs, and was Ambassador
to Israel during the Clinton Presidency.  Currently, he is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Affairs at the Brookings institute. Recently he personally endorsed Barack Obama for president and joined Jews For Obama.  He agreed to answer some of our questions:

J4O: Barack Obama has asserted that, in the arsenal of US power, diplomacy has been underused by the current administration. There have been reports of administrative opposition to Israel negotiating with Syria, and of intentionally missed opportunities to engage diplomatically with Iran. Even Defense Secretary Gates urged more spending on Diplomacy. What are the prospects for a reinvigorated State Department under Obama, and would you rejoin?

INDYK: The Bush Administration has managed to significantly strain our “hard power” (i.e. our armed forces), and badly tarnish the American brand name around the world. Consequently, U.S. influence has been seriously undermined and it will therefore be essential for the next president to turn to diplomacy to rebuild our ability to protect and promote American interests globally. Barack Obama’s victory will do much to convince the rest of the world to turn a new page and give America the benefit of the doubt again - as his recent trip to the Middle East and Europe underscored. But it will take the “vigorous diplomacy” that he has promised the American people to take advantage of the opening that his victory will surely produce. In many ways it will be a “new age” of diplomacy and that will inevitably reinvigorate the government department responsible for doing diplomacy.

As for whether I will rejoin, (more…)