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5 REVAMPING US FOREIGN POLICY,
Part 1 Full speed ahead, with
menace By W Joseph Stroupe
Both the US Republicans and the Democrats
- virtually all of whom voted for war in Iraq in
2003 - face the moment of truth in the form of the
awful, escalating consequences of a foolhardy and
reckless invasion of an oil-rich Islamic Middle
East nation.
The Democrats' post-election
euphoria will be short-lived indeed; they've
rejoiced at seeing President George W Bush get an
Iraq-war-inspired no-confidence "thumpin'" and at
their winning the US
Congress, but they've thereby
virtually inherited from the sovereign US
electorate the task of somehow getting the United
States out of its deepening Middle East quagmire -
and, it is hoped, without it suffering a
concomitant geopolitical insolvency, at a critical
juncture in modern history when ever more potent
and opportunistic challengers to US global power
and dominance are rising in the East and when
their proxies are (not coincidentally) rising
across the Middle East.
The majority of
the US electorate think the Democrats lack a real
plan, and they do lack one. Their hope to
formulate one that is workable based on the
bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG) Report is likely
to turn out to be a vain expectation at best or
the realization of a cruel political betrayal at
worst.
The Democrats need, at a minimum, a
plan that simultaneously forces Bush to change
course, to bend to their will by getting the US
out of Iraq soon, insulates them from blame for
whatever happens in Iraq afterward while making
that blame stick to Bush, and credits them with
any US "win" that may somehow result in Iraq and
the region after the withdrawal of forces. That is
far more than a tall order, and the ISG is not
much political help in this regard to the
Democrats.
After the November
congressional elections, Bush initially appeared
to have finally come down off his single-minded,
supercilious fantasies and ideological denial to
begin to face the harsh reality of massive US
over-reach in Iraq. His showing defense secretary
Donald Rumsfeld the door and nominating Robert
Gates to take his place as Pentagon chief fed the
image of a president humbled and willing to listen
to new ideas.
However, that facade is
slipping as Bush is still refusing to modify the
fundamentals of his long-standing "stay the
course" policy by taking the Democrats'
suggestions seriously. He is still refusing to
engage in meaningful talks with Iran or Syria and
seriously to consider timetables, benchmarks and a
phased withdrawal from Iraq.
Bush has
stepped up the bellicose talk directed at Iran and
is massively reinforcing US military power in and
near the Persian Gulf and also doing likewise
within operational range of North Korea.
Furthermore, he has reassured top Israeli leaders
that they need not fear that his resolve to deal
forcibly with Iran has been weakened one iota.
Israeli leaders exited jubilant from their recent
meeting with Bush.
As Bush and Vice
President Dick Cheney asserted before the
election, they were not up for re-election and no
matter what the voters said, the two would
continue to do what they believed were the right
things for the national security of the United
States.
In fact, Seymour Hersh reports in
the The New Yorker magazine that one month before
the election, Cheney asserted in a
national-security discussion at the Executive
Office Building that the administration would be
undeterred from pursuing the military option
against Iran by any Democratic election victory.
The report has credibility because after the
election, Bush reassured Israeli leaders of his
resolve to use military force to stop Iran, as
noted above.
At every turn in foreign
policy, the Bush administration will battle and/or
simply ignore the Democrats, seeking to discredit
their proposals and undermine their unity,
wherever there is a clash with what the
administration believes is right. On foreign
policy this remains an entirely unrepentant
administration, notwithstanding its post-election
pretenses of a switch to bipartisanship, the
insistence that it listens to new ideas, British
Prime Minister Tony Blair's calls for soft-power
strategies and negotiations with Iran and Syria,
and the personnel change at the Pentagon, the
meaning and importance of which have been
significantly overplayed by the media.
Now
that the "dreaded" election losses for the
Republicans have been delivered, what further
foreign-policy-based political loss is there for
the Bush administration to fear? Why should the
administration substantively give in to the
Democrats on foreign-policy issues? Short of
taking the enormously difficult and risky step of
pulling the plug on funding, what can the
Democrats actually do now to stop the
administration from largely continuing its
foreign-policy line for two more years?
The Democrats have their hands full trying
to find a way actually to constrain, change the
course of, or otherwise humble and check the power
of the current administration. The conduct of
foreign policy is the prerogative of the executive
branch, after all. Under mounting pressure from
the Democrats to begin pulling US troops out of
Iraq - something that would certainly plunge Iraq
and likely the region itself into the uncontrolled
fires of sectarian chaos - Bush knows his time to
act is probably much shorter than the two years he
has left in office.
So, rather than to
bridle and make compliant this administration, the
effect of the Democratic win has every appearance
of
