Bush's Foreign Policy Needs to Get Real
I'm still on the road though I expect to be home late tomorrow. I haven't been able to follow a number of news stories as closely as I would like to. The North Korea nuclear test, of course was bizarre but my fundamental reaction is similar to when they launched that series of missiles last July 4th: the problem is serious and needs to be dealt with but there are actually bigger problems at the moment, and the biggest is our dysfunctional foreign policy which is incapable at the moment of dealing professionally with North Korea and using tools that have been effective in the last 60 years.
Donald Gregg, who was Vice President George Bush's national security adviser from 1982 to 1989 and later the senior Bush's ambassador to South Korea has a brief article in The Washington Post; here are two things that caught my eye:
I'm not sure if any significance should be attached to Donald Gregg's association with the senior Bush. But it's been obvious since 2002 that the senior Bush has been dissatisfied with the foreign policy skills and judgment of the junior Bush. Gregg is as conservative as they come but he makes some useful points.
The United States cannot afford George W. Bush's drifting and ineffectual foreign policy. Diplomatic breakthroughs are famous when negotiations take place with enemies, not friends. Bush's personal foreign policy efforts have been amateurish from day one. Right wing Republicans who support Bush's policies forget that diplomacy is not about the stupidity or bad attitude of the other guy and whether or not you you feel like talking to him; it's about using dialogue intelligently in order to accomplish something. The police in our communities understand the power of diplomacy very well. If you have two or three thugs holding a couple of families with young children hostage, you don't charge in with your guns blazing without trying negotiations. Good negotiators don't care how stupid or bad you are, they care about using all their skills to get the hostages released. Obviously, negotiations with nations are more complicated but there's still a powerful recognition of what negotiations can accomplish. It's troubling that Bush seems more concerned with his image or politics than he does with getting the job done. We need a Congress that can remind the president of his responsibilities.
Donald Gregg, who was Vice President George Bush's national security adviser from 1982 to 1989 and later the senior Bush's ambassador to South Korea has a brief article in The Washington Post; here are two things that caught my eye:
The initiation of a strong bilateral dialogue between NK and the US would
strengthen the moderates, and ease the situation in general, but that is not at
all likely to happen.
(snip)
Why won't the Bush administration talk bilaterally and substantively with
NK, as the Brits (and eventually the US) did with Libya? Because the Bush
administration sees diplomacy as something to be engaged in with another country
as a reward for that country's good behavior. They seem not to see diplomacy as
a tool to be used with antagonistic countries or parties, that might bring about
an improvement in the behaviour of such entities, and a resolution to the issues
that trouble us. Thus we do not talk to Iran, Syria, Hizballah or North Korea.
We only talk to our friends -- a huge mistake.
I'm not sure if any significance should be attached to Donald Gregg's association with the senior Bush. But it's been obvious since 2002 that the senior Bush has been dissatisfied with the foreign policy skills and judgment of the junior Bush. Gregg is as conservative as they come but he makes some useful points.
The United States cannot afford George W. Bush's drifting and ineffectual foreign policy. Diplomatic breakthroughs are famous when negotiations take place with enemies, not friends. Bush's personal foreign policy efforts have been amateurish from day one. Right wing Republicans who support Bush's policies forget that diplomacy is not about the stupidity or bad attitude of the other guy and whether or not you you feel like talking to him; it's about using dialogue intelligently in order to accomplish something. The police in our communities understand the power of diplomacy very well. If you have two or three thugs holding a couple of families with young children hostage, you don't charge in with your guns blazing without trying negotiations. Good negotiators don't care how stupid or bad you are, they care about using all their skills to get the hostages released. Obviously, negotiations with nations are more complicated but there's still a powerful recognition of what negotiations can accomplish. It's troubling that Bush seems more concerned with his image or politics than he does with getting the job done. We need a Congress that can remind the president of his responsibilities.
posted by Craig at 1:29 PM
2 Comments:
Your post illustrates the entire problem with the neo-cons: diplomacy is just another extension of ideology to them.
They willfully ideologize what should be the most pragmatic of national governmental functions.
I doubt that a workable American foreign policy can come into existence with them having a significant voice at the table, let alone being in charge.
Euzoius, the irony is that some of these guys, meaning the intellectual neoconservatives like Wolfowitz, have had a voice at the table for the last thirty years and were largely ignored, usually because their positions were first of all extreme, and secondly, when they made predictions, they were repeatedly contradicted by subsequent events. The Bush Administration is the first one to take them seriously—because it fits their ideology.
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