Here's a view from a so-called progressive think tank. What they interpret as 'progressive moves' are in reality 'realist damage control', but there are some interesting observations nonetheless. rkm -------------------------------------------------------- Original source URL: http://www.fpif.org/fpifzines/pr/3383 The Progressive Response Institute for Policy Studies Vol. 10, No. 10 July 24, 2006 Editor: John Feffer, IRC Bush Doctrine Down? In early July, the Bush administration didn't launch a preemptive strike against North Korea's missile launchpad, as some prominent Democrats urged. It has continued to pursue a diplomatic approach with Iran over its nuclear program. It has brokered a new nuclear deal with Russia. Have we entered a new era of a kinder, gentler Bush II foreign policy? Time Magazine thinks so. In its July 8 issue, Mike Allen and Romesh Ratnesar proclaimed the end of the Bush administration's ³cowboy diplomacy.² Philip Gordon, in the July/August 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs has concurred with an obituary for the Bush doctrine in foreign policy. Gordon writes: ³The question is not whether the president and most of his team still hold to the basic tenets of the Bush doctrine‹they do‹but whether they can sustain it. They cannot.² As the Washington Post reported last week, hardline commentators are aghast at this turn toward moderation. Newt Gingrich blasted the Bush administration for subscribing to the ³lawyer-diplomatic fantasy² of using negotiations to solve world problems. Diplomacy, in the minds of Gingrich and his cohorts, apparently falls into the same category as ³old Europe.² Have the reports of the death of the Bush doctrine been greatly exaggerated? At Foreign Policy In Focus, Ehsan Ahrari argues that it is premature to write the epitaph for cowboy diplomacy. ³The real test of whether the use of cowboy diplomacy as a modus operandi has ended or not will come if Iran rejects the comprehensive diplomatic package and continues with its uranium enrichment program,² he writes in his July 13 commentary. Meanwhile, Israel's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza has generated nothing but support from the Bush administration and Congress. FPIF commentator Col. Dan Smith argues that ³George Bush appears to be watching Gaza and Lebanon burn, hoping to rid the area of two surrogates of Iran and Syria and thus create 'space' for his great project: a democratic Middle East.² Stephen Zunes, meanwhile, analyzes U.S. congressional support for Israel's actions and discovers ³a bipartisan consensus on the legitimacy of U.S. allies to run roughshod over international legal norms.² The latest candidate for membership in the Preemptive Strike Club is key U.S. ally Japan. After North Korea's July 4 missile launches, leading Japanese government spokesman Shinzo Abe said, ³If we accept that there is no other option to prevent a missile attack, there is an argument that attacking the missile bases would be within the legal right of self-defense.² Given that Japan has adhered to a peace constitution for the last half century, this move toward a more aggressive foreign and military policy is indeed shocking. For FPIF coverage of Japan and North Korea, see Michael Penn's report on Koizumi's new Middle East strategy and John Feffer's analysis of North Korea's missile intentions. Though it has lost the headline race to Lebanon and Israel, Iraq remains a prominent example of both the persistence and the failure of cowboy diplomacy. Raed Jarrar explores the civil conflict in Iraq and concludes that the U.S. military is responsible for an alarming number of civilian deaths and, perhaps more disturbing, for not interceding to prevent growing sectarian violence. Anas Shallal, in an FPIF op-ed published in the Christian Science Monitor, critiques the U.S. compensation policy, comparing the $45,000 a Seattle woman received for the wrongful death of her cat with the $1,600 that the families of the Haditha massacre victims have received. At the recent Group of 8 (G8) meeting in St. Petersburg, the Middle East and North Korea certainly received much attention. What fell off the agenda, as Conn Hallinan points out, was poverty reduction. The Millennium Development Goals, which aim to halve global poverty by 2015, ³are mired in a devil's brew of self-serving economic policies, lethargic bureaucracy, and outright disingenuousness,² he writes. Are there any bright spots in the world today? The Mexican elections nearly carried Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the progressive mayor of Mexico City, into the presidency. The election remains tied up in a Florida-like vote recount controversy with street protests in support of Obrador still vibrant. Check out the analyses by Mark Engler and Laura Carlsen of the Mexican elections. Tom Barry, meanwhile, points out that a key neoconservative organization, the Project for a New American Century, seems to be running out of steam, a result of ³the global backlash against the imperial ambitions of Š the Bush administration.² So, is the Bush doctrine down for the count? Seymour Hersh continues to expose the Pentagon plans to bomb Iran. Israel and possibly Japan are stepping forward with their own versions of ³shoot first, talk later² foreign policy. And the administration seems far from a compromise on Iraq. Stay tuned. PS: If you're in Washington, DC this summer, please join us at the FPIF film series at Busboys and Poets. The films are hot, the venue is cool Š Please consider supporting Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF). FPIF is a new kind of think tank‹one serving citizen movements and advancing a fresh, internationalist understanding of global affairs. Although we make our FPIF products freely available on the Internet, we need financial support to cover our staff time and expenses. Increasingly, FPIF depends on you and other individual donors to sustain our bare-bones budget. Click on http://www.irc-online.org/donate.php to support FPIF online, or for information about making contributions over the phone or through the mail. We Count on Your Support. Thank you. Published by Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF), a joint project of the International Relations Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS, online at www.ips-dc.org). ©2006. All rights reserved. -- -------------------------------------------------------- Escaping the Matrix website http://escapingthematrix.org/ cyberjournal website http://cyberjournal.org subscribe cyberjournal list mailto:•••@••.••• Posting archives http://cyberjournal.org/show_archives/ Blogs: cyberjournal forum http://cyberjournal-rkm.blogspot.com/ Achieving real democracy http://harmonization.blogspot.com/ for readers of ETM http://matrixreaders.blogspot.com/ Community Empowerment http://empowermentinitiatives.blogspot.com/ Blogger made easy http://quaylargo.com/help/ezblogger.html
