With only two months into the new term, foreign policy and its role in the Barack Obama administration has been a hot button issue across the country.

At a discussion sponsored by the School of Law’s Dean Rusk Center, Earle and Barbara Scarlett, who together have 50 plus yeas of international diplomacy experience, discussed how President Obama’s administration will shape foreign policy in the United States.

“It is not a question that there has been a decline in the U.S. image abroad,” Earle Scarlett said. He also added that the U.S. becoming more cognizant of the foreign countries and their individual citizens’ thoughts will improve America’s reputation.

The Scarletts said the U.S. needs to change its method of leadership and diplomacy from Bush’s “Big Stick” policy to a more “bottom up” approach in which leaders listen to the people. The Scarletts also noted that Obama’s remark about having open dialogue with those who “open [their] clench fists” suggests that he may hit the “reset” button on American foreign policy.

In line with the need for a change in foreign policy, the Scarletts said America must rethink its intervention into the events happening in other nations and the conflicts in the Middle East.

“The United States needs a more multilateral foreign policy,” Barbara Scarlett said, noting that the government should work on “friendly persuasion.” She said Americans don’t want to be made to do something they don’t believe in and foreign citizens are not any different in that respect.

Barbara Scarlett closed the discussion by directing students to visit www.state.gov, where they can learn how to help overseas through their chosen professions.