Bush foreign policy ‘vision’ may not survive Bush

WASHINGTON – After three difficult years in Iraq, many Republicans have grown weary of US President George W Bush’s idealistic foreign policy doctrine and long for a return to a more pragmatic, cautious conduct of international affairs.

A clear statement of Bush’s vision came in his second inaugural address in January 2005, when he pledged to support democratic movements and institutions “with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world”. But with US troops bogged down in Iraq amid a growing threat of civil war, and the militant group Hamas winning recent Palestinian elections, Republicans, including conservatives who helped drive Bush’s vision, have begun to express doubts.”To the extent that Bush said we could export democracy as if it were a product, that was a mistaken idea,” said Clifford May, a former Republican Party official and Bush supporter who now heads the Centre for Defence of Democracies.He said the Palestinian vote demonstrated there is more to building a democracy than holding elections.When Bush ran for office in 2000, he vowed a “humble” foreign policy.But the September 11 attacks changed everything.Bush outlined a doctrine that advocated pre-emptive, and if necessary unilateral, military action against potential threats.That provided justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”The Iraq venture has killed this Bush doctrine of imposing democracy by force if necessary,” says John Steinbruner, director of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland.Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 per cent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq, according to an Associated Press-IPSOS poll released this month.The foreign-policy debate between idealism and interest-driven pragmatism has been a long-running theme throughout US history.It was usually Republicans who advocated cautious realism while Democrats pushed for idealism.NEW VISIONS APPEARING Now, Republicans may be returning to their roots.”There will be considerable support among Republicans for a more-restrained, more selective and more cautious foreign policy in the next election,” said Ted Carpenter of the libertarian Cato Institute.Some possible presidential candidates, notably Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, are putting forward principles at odds with the Bush vision.Hagel argued last November for a “principled realism” and said the United States would need “a wider lens view of how the world sees us, so that we can better understand the world, and our role in it.”Neo-conservatives who pressed for the Iraq invasion are on the defensive.Some still say the idea was sound but the implementation was flawed.As Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s advisory Defence Policy Board from 2001 to 2003 put it, the administration “got the war right and the aftermath wrong”.But Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the 1992 neo-conservative bestseller ‘The End of History’, which argued that the world was headed toward liberal democracy under US guidance, now says in a new book that Bush overreached in Iraq and grossly underestimated the difficulties.Fukuyama now promotes a foreign policy more aware of the limits of American power, less dependent on the military, and more respectful of the interests and opinions of other countries and emerging international norms and institutions.Terry Jeffrey, a columnist for the conservative weekly Human Events, said many conservatives never supported the Bush doctrine but kept quiet because they approved of his domestic policies and because he was too popular to oppose.Jeffrey called Bush’s vision of ending tyranny a “utopian, Wilsonian” view of the world, referring to former President Woodrow Wilson, who said nations have a right to self-determination and inspired the creation of the League of Nations after the First World War.But Americans rejected Wilson’s vision, refused to join the League of Nations and embarked on 20 years of isolationism after he left office.- Nampa-ReutersBut with US troops bogged down in Iraq amid a growing threat of civil war, and the militant group Hamas winning recent Palestinian elections, Republicans, including conservatives who helped drive Bush’s vision, have begun to express doubts.”To the extent that Bush said we could export democracy as if it were a product, that was a mistaken idea,” said Clifford May, a former Republican Party official and Bush supporter who now heads the Centre for Defence of Democracies.He said the Palestinian vote demonstrated there is more to building a democracy than holding elections.When Bush ran for office in 2000, he vowed a “humble” foreign policy.But the September 11 attacks changed everything.Bush outlined a doctrine that advocated pre-emptive, and if necessary unilateral, military action against potential threats.That provided justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.”The Iraq venture has killed this Bush doctrine of imposing democracy by force if necessary,” says John Steinbruner, director of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland.Nearly four out of five Americans, including 70 per cent of Republicans, believe civil war will break out in Iraq, according to an Associated Press-IPSOS poll released this month.The foreign-policy debate between idealism and interest-driven pragmatism has been a long-running theme throughout US history.It was usually Republicans who advocated cautious realism while Democrats pushed for idealism. NEW VISIONS APPEARING Now, Republicans may be returning to their roots.”There will be considerable support among Republicans for a more-restrained, more selective and more cautious foreign policy in the next election,” said Ted Carpenter of the libertarian Cato Institute.Some possible presidential candidates, notably Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, are putting forward principles at odds with the Bush vision.Hagel argued last November for a “principled realism” and said the United States would need “a wider lens view of how the world sees us, so that we can better understand the world, and our role in it.”Neo-conservatives who pressed for the Iraq invasion are on the defensive.Some still say the idea was sound but the implementation was flawed.As Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon’s advisory Defence Policy Board from 2001 to 2003 put it, the administration “got the war right and the aftermath wrong”.But Francis Fukuyama, who wrote the 1992 neo-conservative bestseller ‘The End of History’, which argued that the world was headed toward liberal democracy under US guidance, now says in a new book that Bush overreached in Iraq and grossly underestimated the difficulties.Fukuyama now promotes a foreign policy more aware of the limits of American power, less dependent on the military, and more respectful of the interests and opinions of other countries and emerging international norms and institutions.Terry Jeffrey, a columnist for the conservative weekly Human Events, said many conservatives never supported the Bush doctrine but kept quiet because they approved of his domestic policies and because he was too popular to oppose.Jeffrey called Bush’s vision of ending tyranny a “utopian, Wilsonian” view of the world, referring to former President Woodrow Wilson, who said nations have a right to self-determination and inspired the creation of the League of Nations after the First World War.But Americans rejected Wilson’s vision, refused to join the League of Nations and embarked on 20 years of isolationism after he left office.- Nampa-Reuters