But it
has never been the case that the Bush Administration has
been a tough-talking, unilaterally-acting power, short
on diplomacy and long on bullying. The cowboy metaphor
is designed to create the impression that the Bush Administration
has been acting alone, pursuing preemptive wars and presenting
non-negotiable demands. Such a charge is designed to hurt
the President's party at the polls this November.
A valid
criticism, not made by Time, is that the Bush
Administration has promoted democracy for a region of the
world that has become so radicalized by propaganda from
Arab TV channels such as Al-Jazeera that it doesn't yet
seem quite capable of accepting it. The effort, however,
still has to be considered a noble cause that was a far
better option than maintaining a status quo that produced
al Qaeda and 9/11. This struggle will continue for years,
if not decades, and holds the promise of making the region?and
America?safer in the long run. Our media have no patience
for such an approach.
The other
critical factor that has to be considered in evaluating
the approach to Iran and North Korea is that failures or
misguided policies by the Clinton Administration have constrained
the Bush Administration's ability to resolve these serious
problems.
The premise
of the story was that Bush has used up his and the nation's
credibility because of a misbegotten war in Iraq, and that
it has been forced by circumstances to pursue an alternative
course. Mike Allen and Romesh Ratnesar of Time wrote
that "...the very fact that parts of Iraq remain
on the edge of chaos after three years of fighting and
the deaths of more than 2,500 Americans are incontrovertible
evidence of how the Administration's miscalculations have
come back to haunt it."
Media
Onslaught
Miscalculations
have been made, but these have included a failure to understand
how anti-war propaganda?by the U.S. and European media
and outlets like Al-Jazeera?would encourage the enemy and
make victory more difficult.
The Time reporters
wrote that Bush came to office with goals to "pursue a
'humble' foreign policy that would avoid the entanglements
of the Bill Clinton years."
But then
everything changed. "After Sept. 11, however, the Bush
team embarked on a different path, outlining a muscular,
idealistic and unilateralist vision of American power and
how to use it. He aimed to lay the foundation for a grand
strategy to fight Islamic terrorists and rogue states by
spreading democracy around the world and pre-empting gathering
threats before they materialize..."
What
was left unsaid, of course, was that 9/11 could have possibly
been avoided if the Clinton Administration had been able
to accomplish something more in the war on terrorism than
merely indicting Osama bin Laden and bombing one of his
empty training camps in Afghanistan.
However,
the event that seemed to trigger Time's conclusion
that a major change had taken place in the Bush foreign
policy was the reaction to the July 4th incident in which
the Communist North Korean regime test-fired several missiles.
President Bush had warned the week before that such action
was "unacceptable." Time said, "Under the old
Bush Doctrine, defiance by a dictator like Kim Jong Il
would have merited threats of punitive U.S. action?or at
least a tongue lashing. Instead, the Administration has
mainly been talking up multilateralism and downplaying
Pyongyang's provocation." They added, "cowboy diplomacy,
RIP."
Others
picked up on the Time theme. New York Newsday wrote
that "The arrogant prerogative of go-it-alone preventive
war to crush rogue nations was replaced by cautionary words
urging patience with the slow and often frustrating work
of diplomacy."
It added, "This
is not the same Bush who ignored all of his allies' objections
to invade Iraq."
Bush-Bashing
We have
said this many times before, but it bears repeating. Bush
went into Iraq after getting an authorization from Congress
and a unanimous Security Council resolution, 1441. Though
unable to pass a second Security Council resolution after
Hans Blix had returned from Iraq to say that Saddam Hussein
was still refusing to cooperate, Bush gained the support
of 50 nations, more than 30 of which sent troops to Iraq.
Some of the major nations which didn't support the effort,
such as France and Russia, had billions of dollars of contracts
with Iraq and were implicated in the U.N.'s oil-for-food
scandal.
Time referred
to the "entanglements" of the Clinton years without explaining
how the Clinton Administration itself engaged in "cowboy" diplomacy.
First, Clinton bombed Iraq for several days in December
of 1998 with no Congressional or United Nations approval.
In the end, however, Clinton left the festering problem
for Bush to deal with.
Clinton's
War On Serbia
Second,
Clinton waged war against Serbia in violation of the War
Powers Act, without the approval of Congress or the U.N.,
using NATO as an offensive rather than defensive force.
That violated the NATO treaty. Today, because of the Clinton
policy, a Muslim state is being constructed in the Serbian
province of Kosovo, creating another foreign policy crisis
for the Bush Administration that it must address immediately.
Regarding
Iran, which was taken over by fanatical Muslims when then-President
Jimmy Carter made human rights a cornerstone of U.S. foreign
policy, Bush has faced another difficult problem that Clinton
contributed to. Bush has pursued diplomatic options along
with the European Union while insisting that the Iranians
stop enriching uranium and give up their nuclear-weapons
ambitions.
Clinton,
by contrast, actually enlisted Iranian help in arming the
Bosnian Muslims against the Christian Serbs and helped
establish a militant Islamic base in Bosnia. In a scandal
that the major media conveniently ignored, a Senate Republican
report said that the Clinton Administration was unwilling "to
come clean with the Congress and with the American people
about its complicity in the delivery of weapons from Iran
to the Muslim government in Sarajevo."
Iran
also expanded into other areas, such as southern Lebanon,
leading to the current war between Hezbollah and Israel.
In regard
to North Korea, Clinton was snookered by the North Korean
communists, after providing them with massive amounts of
aid, while they cheated on their promise to abandon their
nuclear weapons program. With North Korea, Bush has insisted
on working in the context of the six-party talks, and recently
helped secure a Security Council resolution condemning
the regime's missile tests. At the same time, he has pursued
a national missile defense for the U.S., designed to protect
America against missile threats from North Korea and other
enemies.
In the
Middle East, Clinton wasted eight years with the so-called
Oslo process, during which Israel and the Palestinians
were supposed to make peace, and he entertained Yasser
Arafat repeatedly at the White House. In the end, Israel
was under attack again and the region was ablaze in a second
intifada. That is the situation that the Bush Administration
inherited.
If Bush
is indeed a cowboy, and there is a showdown with North
Korea or Iran, the U.S. will probably have Britain, Australia,
Japan, Israel and a few dozen more allies lined up with
us. This "cowboy" has a posse. CRO
The America Show
