Former executive director of the 9/11 Commission Philip Zelikow highlighted the state of American foreign policy in the 21st century at a Thursday night lecture, and he said major reform is needed to unify a global civilization.
"We should address globalization and self-determination, because we as a society can't understand what's going on; take the financial crisis and global warming, for example," he said.
The Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law sponsored the lecture. The center's director, James Lindsay, said it was an honor to have such an accomplished man speak at UT.
"The Strauss Center is dedicated to engaging the best minds, and his magisterial address on a challenging American policy that might mesh with our allies only makes us wish we had more time with him," Lindsay said.
Zelikow worked at the State Department and on the National Security Council under President H.W. Bush and has worked closely with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as an adviser for global development.
Zelikow proposed a plan that responds to globalization and self-determination.
He said he believes the U.S. should "look beyond traditional issues of trade and exchange toward global frameworks for globalized investment and globalized business operations."
Zelikow said the government cannot rally the world by saying, "let's wage a war on terror."
English sophomore Bruce Martin said he saw a flier for the lecture about an hour before an audience packed a conference room in the LBJ Library.
"I don't believe if you're living in society you can be an idle citizen," he said. "You have to know what's going on in the world."
Zelikow said the testimony Gen. David Petraeus gave to Congress this week on Iraq was like saying we've stabilized the patient that is Iraq, but we haven't stabilized the patient that is Washington.
"[Iraq] is undergoing a revolution, and we can't predict the result of the revolution," Zelikow said. "People there seem to be ambivalent to American occupation."
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