L'Etat, C'est George W.
George W. Bush has campaigned on a foreign policy that is, for the most part, appropriate and wise. He has said that this country and its leaders should show "the modesty of true strength [and] the humility of real greatness." We take issue with his criticism of what he has called "nation-building" because we believe that American might can and should be used sometimes to promote democratic values in other countries. But his is a vision of America's role in the world that would make us happy and proud.
If only we could have it. For that was Bush's vision in 2000. He has governed very differently. Yes, the events of Sept. 11 changed much, if not everything. But that doesn't justify Bush's dramatic flip-flop (to use his favorite criticism of his opponent, John F. Kerry). Elected leaders should be penalized for saying one thing and doing another, even if the result isn't disastrous. Bush's foreign policy has been disastrous.
When Bush and Kerry debated Thursday, they focused so narrowly on Iraq that they didn't really answer this fundamental question: Is the U.S. safer than it was four years ago? Even allowing that our country was less safe four years ago than we realized at the time, the answer is no.
When Bush entered office in January 2001, the United States was not just a dominant power in the world, it was an unrivaled one. Europe cheered as U.S.-led airstrikes toppled Slobodan Milosevic's tyranny in the Balkans. China backed down from threatening Taiwan when President Clinton sent warships into the region. Around the world, the American model was seen as the only path to prosperity and freedom.
Now all that is gone. The military is stretched to the breaking point, with more than 100,000 troops tied down in Iraq and more than $90 billion having been spent on behalf of a war that was based on a massive intelligence failure. The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been willfully abandoned by the Bush administration. North Korea and Iran are constructing nuclear weapons with impunity. Russia is reaching back to its czarist past as Vladimir V. Putin tightens his grip on power, while Bush utters feeble pieties about how he will continue to push for democracy and human rights. Meanwhile, admiration for the U.S. has been replaced by loathing; even in moderate Turkey, 59% of the population, according to a recent Pew Research Center poll, believes that suicide bombings are legitimate in Iraq.
