Foreign Policy of Failure

Foreign Follies

Doug Bandow
Rare is it to find a president whose foreign policy has imploded as dramatically and catastrophically as has that of George W. Bush. Little more than a year after taking office, the candidate who espoused humility turned into the chief executive who embraced empire. Four years later, the administration's drive for global primacy irrespective of the needs of America, interests of other nations, and wishes of other peoples has dramatically sapped Washington's power and influence. Washington's fulminations – about defeating Iraq's insurgents, preventing North Korea's missile launches, dismantling Iran's nuclear program – look increasingly hollow. Countries and movements once thought to be cowering in Uncle Sam's shadow now exhibit flagrant contempt for Washington's desires.

It is the administration determined to stay in Iraq, not its critics who advocate withdrawal, that is responsible for the fact that thousands of patriotic men and women, through no fault of their own, will die in vain. Indeed, not just die in vain, but die in a conflict that is weakening the U.S. and making all Americans less secure. The president says that the Iraq war is "straining the psyche" of America, but it is really the administration's botched foreign policy that is straining our psyche.

Consider the international environment on Sept. 12, 2001. Terrorists had struck a shocking blow, but the U.S. held a position of enormous advantage. America possessed the greatest military on earth, was allied with all of the major industrialized powers, and benefited from a surge of international goodwill reaching even into the Muslim world.