December 23, 2003 6:42 AM

Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil- for I am the meanest SOB in the Valley

The 'Bush Doctrine' Experiences Shining Moments

It's always been at the heart of the Bush Doctrine that a more robust policy would permit us to elicit greater cooperation from adversaries than we'd had in the past when we acquiesced. With the capture of Saddam, the sense that momentum may be with us is very important.

- Richard Perle

I know it seems as if the Bush foreign policy is a series of knee-jerk reactions disguised as a coherent foreign policy, but their apparently is something known as "The Bush Doctrine". Who knew??

It has been a week of sweet vindication for those who promulgated what they call the Bush Doctrine.

Beginning with the capture of Saddam Hussein a week ago and ending Friday with an agreement by Libya's Moammar Gaddafi to surrender his unconventional weapons, one after another international problem has eased.

On Tuesday, the leaders of France and Germany set aside their long-standing opposition to the war in Iraq and agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of that country's debt. On Thursday, Iran signed an agreement allowing surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities after European governments applied intense pressure on the U.S. foe. On Friday, Libya agreed to disarm under the watch of international inspectors, just as administration officials were learning that Syria had seized $23.5 million believed to be for al Qaeda.

To foreign policy hard-liners inside and outside the administration, the gestures by Libya, Iran and Syria, and the softening by France and Germany, all have the same cause: a show of American might.

Those who developed the Bush Doctrine -- a policy of taking preemptive, unprovoked action against emerging threats -- predicted that an impressive U.S. victory in Iraq would intimidate allies and foes alike, making them yield to U.S. interests in other areas. Though that notion floundered with the occupation in Iraq, the capture of Hussein may have served as the decisive blow needed to make others respect U.S. wishes, they say.

Translation: the US can now do pretty much whatever it damn well pleases, and if you're not with us, you're against us. If you're against us, you can kiss any of those lucrative post-war contracts goodbye. If you're with us...dude, you're gonna get RICH!!

At least when we had the Evil Empire to concern ourselves with, there was something resembling a balance of power in place. The USSR knew what it could and could not risk doing, and the same was true for the US. Now that system of diplomatic and military checks and balances are nowhere to be found, and the Bushies have free reign to project American power where ever, whenever, and however they see fit to do so. The American public is so pumped with their newfound strength and sense of purpose that Bush could invade Ontario, and we'd be shipping care packages to troops in Toronto.

Is the world a better place with the US acting as it's de facto moral policeman? Does the Bush Doctrine tacitly expect that the rest of the world will dance to the beat set by American foreign policy? And is the Bush Doctrine in reality a smoke screen for securing lucrative contracts for American multinational corporations that donate to Republican campaign coffers? I realize that this may seem a rather cynical view of American success around the world, but let's remember that George W. Bush is the one who lied his way into the war with Iraq. A healthy dose of skepticism is clearly warranted in this case.

The problem with being "King of the Hill" is that we are not going to win many friends projecting military and economic power across the globe. The US government runs the risk of creating the impression of an implicit link between military force and economic might. In reality, that might be true. Napoleon once said that war is simply the conduct of foreign policy by other means. In this day and age, war may simply be the conduct of economic policy by other means.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 23, 2003 6:42 AM.

Sometimes being single really IS the safer option was the previous entry in this blog.

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