What Might Dem Foreign Policy Look Like?
Dave Price
Aside from the obligatory Bush-bashing and characterization of Iraq's liberation as a "disaster" (it is The Nation, after all), some interesting insights in this article.
Holbrooke acknowledges that in the wake of the Iraq disaster, it will be harder to carry out the type of humanitarian interventions that defined the Clinton Administration. In the case of Darfur, for example, none of the candidates have suggested sending US forces. "The standard will be higher," Holbrooke said. "The tests of an exit strategy will be higher. The risks will be higher." In the 1990s Holbrooke warned of "Vietnamalia syndrome," the aversion to using military power because of failures in Vietnam and Somalia, and says we cannot retreat now, either. "A swing from neoconservatism to neo-isolationism would not be a good deal."I think we can live with a Holbrookian "muscular liberalism." Obviously it won't be nearly as muscular as Bush's toppling of two illiberal regimes, but the main concern, Iraq, may actually be stable enough by this time next year that it won't be a major issue, and Afghanistan still has the clear 9/11 ties that make abandoning the field to Al Qaeda unthinkable.
No doubt we'll see a lot of this type of thing...
Statements like these raise the question of what a post-Bush foreign policy should look like. The next President must decide: will the "war on terror" continue? What about the Bush doctrine of preventive war or the escalating size of the military budget? Holbrooke says, "The next President needs to scrap a lot of things from the Bush Administration, and torture, Guantánamo and pre-emptive war should be on that list." Wesley Clark, too, says the concept of a "war on terror" was a "terrible mistake," and he calls the Bush doctrine "nonsense, rubbish." On these points Obama and Edwards concur....but these are basically cosmetic. Of course, we didn't torture under Bush either, and I'll bet if we capture a few senior-level AQ terrorists with knowledge of plots to kill large number of Americans they will be waterboarded if it comes down to that, whatever claims Dems make in the heat of a primary battle. They can close Gitmo as a nod to all the histrionic press coverage, though one wonders where they will put all the terrorists. And we'll see lots of obsequious bowing to the "international community" and the UN, but that won't matter any more than it ever has.
Probably the main differences in the GWOT will be that the CIA won't leak every secret initiative to the NYT to embarass a Dem administration, and we won't hear these endless moronic complaints about the civil rights of terrorists any more than we heard complaints about the mass internment of Japanese-Americans and the summary executions of German spies when that seemed necessary. Why, it's almost enough to make one look forward to an Obama administration...
I'm not saying that "action" in Darfur (particularly America-led military action) is necessarily a good idea.
Just that using Iraq as an excuse BEFOREHAND for the F-A-C-T that this one particular conflict will not be solved by the next president, even if he's a democrat is less than admirable.
As if - but for Bush - the Democrats would be getting the cavalry all revved up to swoop in and save Darfur, bloodlessly, cleanly, nobody-gets-madly.
Layers and layers of BS. It's almost enough to get a guy sour on politics.
Perhaps, but it's realistic.
Although Dave's analysis is more sanguine than my own. I expect a repeat of the Carter Years Redux myself...
Suggesting that the invasion of Iraq is the reason that the USAF won't "get" to save Darfur is ludicrous.
One of the reasons why the US failed to intervene in Rwanda in 1994 was the trouble Somalia caused us. So it's not a stretch to state that the trouble we've had with Iraq has influenced our behavior in Darfur. It has definitely constrained our actions with Iran.
There are other, more important factors in the case of Darfur, namely China's protection of Sudan in exchange for it's oil. However that' doesn't diminish Dave's argument.
And if we hadn't gone into Somalia, Rwanda would have been our "Somalia," probably a lot worse.
Also, if Holbroke is correct, George Bush's Iraq adventure has saved the democrats from their own Darfur quagmire. He should be thankful.
It's not necessarily false that Iraq is preventing an American Darfur intervention. What is false is that a Darfur intervention:
1) Should happen
2) Would turn out well
3) Should be led by America
Holbroke is using Iraq for cover and political advantage. He's using it in a way that is cynical even for politics.
He's looking at an example of how bad it could be, and claiming that that example CAUSED, rather than illuminated the futility of, the course of action he can claim credit for wishing would happen.
That's awkward.
He's looking at an example of how bad it could be, and claiming that that example prevents a noble course of action he can claim credit for advocating, rather than illuminating the futility of that course of action.
Holbroke's off the hook, completely. No Darfur fiasco, plus a nice little excuse for not doing the "right" thing.
That's arguable. Rwanda wasn't as militarized. The most commonly used weapon during the slaughter was the machete. Plus the nation is Christian/Animist for the most part, so you wouldn't have had al-Qaeda in operation there.
Be that as it may, Iraq may be the reason America will be uninterested in saving Darfur, but there's no reason the other 189 countries on the planet can't give it a shot.
They can show us how it's done. We'll all learn from the experience.
2) American elections tend to be about matters other than foreign policy.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
I am beginning to wonder if Reagan's great appeal had far less to do with his vaunted anti-communism than with his equally vaunted anti-welfarequeenism.
A LOT of people who were sick and tired of people getting a free ride on their dollar may not have really gotten all the bent out shape over the Soviet Union's efforts to see how much wealth they could stop people in unfortunate parts of the world from creating.
Just a thought.
Reagan's 28 years ago was about more or less everything other than the foreign stuff. The "misery" index cited by Reagan in his campaign against James Earl Carter, for example, comprised the numeric total of the inflation rate plus the unemployment rate.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.