Samantha Power

Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs, National Security Council (since January 2009)

(Harvard University)

Why She Matters

Power exemplifies the glamorous academic or, as she describes it, a "genocide chick."

The journalist, activist and former Harvard professor burst onto the foreign-policy scene in 2003 with her book "A Problem from Hell", which accused the United States of intentionally ignoring genocides. The work helped make her one of the foremost thinkers on human rights.

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Background

At a Glance

Career History: Foreign Policy Adviser to Barack Obama (since 2005); Executive director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University (1999 to 2002); Harvard Professor (since 1999)
Birthday: Sept. 21, 1970
Hometown: Ireland
Alma Mater: Yale University, B.A., 1992; Harvard Law School, J.D., 1999

Spouse: Cass R. Sunstein
Office: The White House
Email
Web site

Path to Power

Power was born in Ireland and moved to the United States when she was nine-years-old. Her mother left Europe, she said, because there were no divorces allowed in the country at the time.

Her family moved around a fair amount before settling in Atlanta, where Power attended high school. Though she read a lot as a child, as a teen she became "obsessed" with sports like baseball and basketball. She dreamed of becoming a sportscaster after college.

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"I was not a do-gooder," she said in a 2008 interview. "I was a sports fan who began to realize that there was a big, bad world outside."

Her professors at Yale University helped open her eyes, she said, encouraging her to start reading ferociously again. However, she decided to focus on human rights while an intern at CBS Sports in Atlanta, where she worked after her first year in college.

She was splicing tapes in the studio in June 1989 when she saw raw footage of Tiananmen Square. "It was really sort of chilling, and I thought, 'Oh, my God. What am I doing with my life?'" she said in a 2008 interview.

After Power graduated in 1994 with a history degree, she took off for Yugoslavia. Though she had little reporting experience, she covered the war for the Boston Globe, the Economist, The New Republic and U.S. News and World Report.

Power enrolled at Harvard Law School in 1996, where she wrote a paper which would grow into her 2002 book, "A Problem from Hell". While she was working on the book, which took seven years, her friends said she was "obsessed." In one instance, she remembers meeting "her idol" Pedro Martinez, the pitcher for the Boston Red Sox (she describes herself as a die-hard fan). She said she realized later that she hadn't "let him get a word in," instead recounting tales from Bosnia and Rwanda."

The book was quite popular when it was released, and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. Esquire magazine said the book helped kick-start the "Save Darfur" movement and launched a broader campaign to stop genocide anywhere in the world.

In 1999, Power helped launch the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. She was the Center's executive director from 1998 to 2002.

Obama Connection

Power met President Barack Obama in 2005 when he called to set up a meeting after reading "A Problem from Hell". What was supposed to be a one-hour meeting stretched on for much longer. "Entering the fourth hour, I heard myself say, 'Why don't I leave my job at Harvard and intern in your office?'" she told the New York Times.

Power worked part-time for Obama that year, and stayed involved with his presidential campaign as a senior foreign policy adviser. She was a talented and popular surrogate until she called Obama's then-opponent Hillary Rodham Clinton "a monster" to a Scottish newspaper. This comment was coupled with another attention-grabbing moment during the same book tour when Power publicly hedged on Obama's promise to withdraw from Iraq in 16 months on BBC's HARDTalk.

Power apologized publicly and said she had not intended for the paper to print the "monster" comment, but it was too late. Pundits attacked, and Power became a tabloid punching bag. The New York Daily News ran a glamour shot of Power next to the headline "Pretty Dumb!"

Power stepped down from the Obama campaign immediately after the Clinton slip, saying her remarks were "inexcusable." She maintained a low profile throughout the rest of the campaign.

Once Obama won the election, Power rejoined his team as a member of the State Department review committee and was appointed the National Security Council once he assumed office.

The Issues

Power's vision for a 21st century democracy includes a respect for international law, talks with rogue states, and a commitment to intervene to stop genocide. "American foreign policy is broken," she wrote in 2007. "It has been broken by people who supported the Iraq War, opposed talking to our adversaries, failed to finish the job with Al Qaeda, and alienated the world with our belligerence ... We cannot afford any more of this kind of bankrupt conventional wisdom."

Genocide

"We have all been bystanders to genocide." That is the first sentence and the central thesis of Power's 2002 book, in which she argues that the United States has chosen to ignore genocides instead of taking action.

This decision, she wrote, emboldened those who were committing atrocities to continue to do so. "One of the most important conclusions I have reached," Power wrote, "is that the U.S. record is not one of failure. It is one of success ... U.S. officials worked the system and the system worked."

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Power has said her book is not a blanket call for military action in all cases, but rather a case for the moral imperative of doing something to stop genocide when it happens.

"If you think of foreign policy as a toolbox, there are a whole range of options -- you can convene allies, impose economic sanctions, expel ambassadors, jam hate radio," she told the New York Times. "There is always something you can do."

Her approach has some critics, who argue that such an approach can destabilize countries, a move that might actually lead to genocides. In The London Review of Books, law professor Stephen Holmes attacked Power's work as an example of the way liberal foreign policy thinkers created a framework for Bush to invade Iraq. "The most eye-catching feature of "A Problem from Hell" is Power's palpable frustration with multilateralism and legalism," he wrote. "An important clue to this aspect of her thinking is the approval with which she cites Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, two unilateralist hawks associated with the current Bush Administration."

United Nations

In her book "Chasing the Flame", Power argues that the United Nations is sometimes unfairly accused of failing to protect the poor and struggling. Power argues that it cannot do so without the support of world powers, who are often reluctant.

She has also called on the U.N. and other aid organizations to do more to protect their workers abroad. If organizations are working in areas where local authorities cannot prevent terrorists from attacking, she says they should reduce their presence. She has also called on the U.N. and member nations to spend more money securing areas where aid workers work with additional security, so U.N. employees are better protected.

Iraq War

Power opposed the Iraq war and has called for a troop withdrawal. She has said military intervention should be considered only when there is an immediate threat of large-scale loss of life, and that this was not the case in 2003. Instead, she said the Bush administration has relied on a selective use of international law to justify its actions.

This case has its critics. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, argued that Obama's proposal for withdrawal might destabilize the country and thus result in a genocide.

The Network

Power is quite close to Obama. In 2004, she advised presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clarke.

She has fans in many of the top foreign policy circles. The late Richard C.Holbrooke, a former diplomat who was a top aide at Clinton's State Department, was known todistribute her book to colleagues, including former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Sarah Sewall, a fellow foreign policy adviser for Obama who is also being considered for an administration job, is a member of Harvard's Carr Center. She also shared views with Obama U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice and the two reportedly fought for military intervention in Libya in March 2011.

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