I've mostly talked about Iraq in this space, but recent developments in U.S. foreign policy are worth looking at from a broader perspective. TIME's cover story this week discusses the drastic difference between stated Bush foreign policy strategy and actual action. The greatest problem -- among many -- with neoconservative foreign policy is the insistence upon dealing with the world as neocons would like it to be, rather than what it is. This ideology-based approach has been an unmitigated failure. TIME explains:
A grinding and unpopular war in Iraq, a growing insurgency in Afghanistan, an impasse over Iran's nuclear ambitions, brewing war between Israel and the Palestinians -- the litany of global crises would test the fortitude of any president, let alone a second-termer with an approval rating mired in Warren Harding territory. And there's no relief in sight.These problems did not occur in a vacuum: The Iraq war is the centerpiece of the neoconservative foreign policy movement, Afghanistan was put on the back burner because of its (perceived) lack of strategic import, Iran pushed ahead with its nuclear program in part because of U.S. refusals to engage in negotiations and in part because it knows many neocons want to head east from Iraq, and the U.S. has abandoned any constructive role with Israel and the Palestinians. Not to mention North Korea, with whom Bush flatly refuses bilateral negotiations as it launches test missiles towards the West Coast.
Just failure upon failure, not advancing American interests and certainly not promoting democracy. While Secretary Rice steers the ship of State back towards realism, neoconservatism is dying a slow (if generally unacknowledged) death. There's not enough space in the whole internets to properly caveat my disagreements with Andrew Sullivan, but he gets this:
[Y]ou see the strange, almost surreal disconnection between the president’s words and his actions. He has indeed described the current conflict between civilisation and terror masters armed with WMDs as the equivalent of the third world war.The failure of some conservatives to recognize the wheels coming off the neocon bandwagon is bizarre, and I think it differentiates the conservatives from the cultists (this one somehow manages to blame Carter for North Korea). The vast majority of Americans don't care what the U.S. calls its foreign policy strategy. But they should know that it's not just Iraq -- the Republicans in charge can't be trusted with any foreign policy. Democratic Congress. Oversight. Accountability. Change the course.
And yet [... among other things ...] He won’t confront Saudi Arabia over its continued financing of Wahhabist terror. He hasn’t captured Osama Bin Laden, and he’s content to pursue multilateral blather against a real nuclear threat from one of the vilest dictatorships on the planet.
As someone who backed the resolution and analysis of this president in the run-up to war against Saddam, and who still hopes for the best in Iraq, I can only say I feel somewhat conned.
Perhaps if the president had publicly announced that he had miscalculated the Iraq risk, had now abandoned the Cheney doctrine, and, by the sheer weight of experience, was now a Kissingerian realist, able to tolerate the risk of the unthinkable, I could adjust. But he hasn’t. He has just behaved according to one assumption for four years and is now behaving according to another one.
