Centerfield

The main factor in this new opening in the Middle East is Yasser Arafat's death. I don't think Bush can take credit for that (I don't consider the CIA omnipotent). I do give him credit for not negotiating with Arafat, but unless he had a keen insight into Arafat's life expectancy, this really is a fortunate event.

That being said, Bush has proved to be a very lucky man. Sometimes luck is really disguised talent--I think that was the case with Ronald Reagan--but so far, in the case of Bush, I've been unable to penetrate the disguise.

The other lucky element was that OBL has not clearly linked al Qaeda more directly with the plight of the Palestinians. Had the insurgents in Iraq gone to Palestinian territory, there would be much more bloodshed and Sharon would have no support for the Gaza pullout.

Brooks sums up the reasons why, in my judgment, a hawkish foreign policy is usually the best foreign policy. Don't forget that the policies of the last "war-mongerer" (Reagan) led to the end of the Cold War. That said, I agree with Rick: Bush has been lucky.

I for one never questioned the real advantages to invading a Middle Eastern country (Afghanistan aside). The problem to me was why, among these countries, was Iraq chosen?

Brooks acts as though Bush had this planned all along but seems to forget how Bush the Isolationist campaigned in 2000.

As a something of a traditional liberal foreign policy hawk, I disagreed with Bush's 2000 campaign support for isolationism. But IMO it reflects favorably upon him that he was willing to adapt his views to better correspond with his post 9/11 perception of global circumstances.

It's not my sense that many people think Bush's current foreign policy is primarily driven by his pre-9/11 perception. I have a problem with people who criticized Bush in 2000 (or would have, if they thought about it) for turning away from global responsibility, but now accuse him of imperial adventuring.

So EG, what's your take on the merits of isolationism or "anti-nation-building," as Bush felt was the right foreign policy tone in 2000. Did you agree with him then?

I don't support all of Bush's choices, ways, and means, but I don't think it's at all fair to imply he was wrong then if you also think he's wrong now. And I'm not saying that's what you are saying, I'm just wondering...

Personally, I'm all for returning to the foundations of this country (No standing millitary, No entangling alliances with any nation).

But, bk asks an interesting question:

"I don't think it's at all fair to imply he was wrong then if you also think he's wrong now."

Isn't it possible for someone to be wrong both ways? After all, driving at 90 mph on the freeway is just as dangerous and illegal as driving 10 mph on the freeway. Sometimes, thats how I see Bush, he went from 5 mph to 123 mph in 4.2 seconds... which is good for race cars, but I'm not sure that its good for Presidents.

R

I think Bush was wrong in his isolationist approach in 2000 but his approach in Iraq now is wrong.

I have been listening to Thomas P.M. Barnett for the last two days on C-SPAN who says we should have had the troops (the can of 'Whoop-ass') along with the reconstruction team (the SysAdmin) going to Baghdad. We missed our chance to re-build Iraq when we were still considered liberators rather than invaders.

Sure, tosk it's possible. But how far do you carry such reasoning?

The more cases you identify as wrong, the fewer remaining cases that are left that can possibly be correct, right? Suppose in 2000 you complained Bush was wrong for going 4 mph. And suppose now you think he's going too fast. Fine. If you're so smart, then describe the sweet spot in between the poles.

My problem is with people making easy criticisms for partisan reasons, and not even bothering to be consistent, not even trying to practice critical thinking in the strong sense. If you just stick with saying everything Bush does is wrong, you're not helping much. It's more like whining than anything else.

And politics isn't car racing, after all. If Bush's isolationism was wrong, and his interventionism is wrong too, and you hold both views simultaneously and have actually thought about them, and their possible contradictions, and then done more thinking to reconcile them, then fine. You must have a pretty good idea of what this sweet spot is that's between being too isolationist and being too interventionist. So reveal the solutions, oh great one.

IMO, if I were to stick with your speed analogy, I'd say it feels to me more like Bush might be guilty of going 70 in a 55 zone.

I think people who criticize Bush's pre 9/11 isolationism should realize that this is a de facto acknowledgement that at least his policy moved in the right direction, even if he overdid it. But then that ruins the "everything he does is wrong" mantra.

bk,

I agree that the "Everything you do is wrong" idea exists best in Weird Al songs and has no place in American politics. George Bush isn't Hitler, he isn't Jim Baker and he isn't Pol Pot. He isn't even a moron.

My personal view (idealistic, I know), as I poseted above, is probably quite a bit closer to Isolationism, than intervention. I still hold that the founding fathers knew what they were doing by not having a standing army, federal taxes or entangling alliances with other nations. However, I do realize that with the advent of WWI and WWII, and certianly post-9/11 that ideal is unworkable, because the average American think that intervention is the way to make America Safe.

I think GWB got up to top speed when he went after Bin Laden. I am still unconvienced that Iraq and the War on Terror are closely enough connected to support this war. The invasion of Iraq was the point, in my opinion, where he exceeded the speed limit and just hasn't looked back.

But, thats my view.

BK,

I think it is possible to fairly criticize Bush for being both too isolationist and too interventionist. There really is a consistent strain running through all of Bush's policies, from discarding the Kyoto Treaty and invading Iraq. They all represent the idea that America is better off going it alone. Even though Bush has couched his post 9/11 policies in universal, internationalist terms, he really has pursued policies independent of what the rest of the world thinks. So, it's actually quite consistent to criticize him on both counts.

Marc,

It feels to me that you are conflating isolationism with independence. When i talk about isolationism, I'm explicitly talking about it in the historically accepted sense of "not getting involved."

That's different from not cooperating with others to achieve something close to your envisioned goals. I agree with your assessment that Bush's policies lean away from cooperative engagement in cases where our policy views conflict, and that they lean towards a stubborn preference for our allies to see things our way, shut up, and get on board. Or get out of the way. But that's disctinct from my understanding of isolationism, unoless you are describing something new that's isolationary interventionism.

But in case I haven't been clear, my problem is with people whose Bush criticism is limited to pointing out all the places where he is wrong, and not going the next step towards a positive and specific description of what to do next.

You must know by now that I'm not a supporter of Bush so much as I'm a pragmatic tolerater hoping his gambits pay off. Even in this position, I get continually aggravated by the more reflexive Bush critics who are so sure everything Bush does is wrong. In the rare instances when I can get them to describe what we should be doing "differently" in Iraq, they often describe many of the things we are already doing as though we either aren't doing them at all, or as though under a different administration these things would be done much, much, more perfectly in spite of the fact that most of the imperfect success is driven by on-the-ground conundrums and real-world limits on our power and resources.

In short, I just wish more Bush critics were thoughtful instead of reflexive. I'm just asking people to be realistic enough about the extreme difficulty of what we're trying to accomplish to be fair when keeping score. And I'm not saying that's you, far from it. I'm not posting as part of playing a game of argument that I just want to win, and it feels to me that other people are doing this, even if they don't think they are.

Maybe they are so much more sure than me because they are way smarter. But it has not been my experience that certainty in the face of complexity is a sign of intelligence.

BK,

Part of the problem is semantics. I don't think anyone would really say that Bush pre-9/11 was truly an isolationist, in the pre-WW II sense that wanted no foreign entanglements at all. I think, however, that Bush's pre-9/11 and post 9-11 policies are consistent in terms of their being essentially unilateral. On the one hand, his pre-9/11 policies involved withdrawing from the world and his post-9/11 policies involve military intervention. But both sets of policies are aimed at advancing specific US interests through unilateral action rather than through what might be called internationalism. I'm not necessarily attacking his specific policies, I'm simply saying it is not necessarily inconsistent to attack BOTH his pre-9/11 and post-9/11 policies. In other words, he was (arguably) a unilateralist when he scrapped the Kyoto Treaty and he was (arguably) a unilateralist when he whent into Iraq. The policies are consistent with a specific view of America's role in the world. Now, obviously it's possible to agree with one set of policies and disagree with another. For example, most liberals violently disagreed with Nixon's policies in Indochina but agreed with his detente policies toward China and the USSR. But, arguably, since the policies were consistent with an overall realpolitik world view, someone who opposed that world view could, IMO, criticize both policies without being inconsistent.

Now, I understand that many people are looking for any way to attack Bush and are often inconsistent in how they attack him. But I don't think it is inconsistent necessarily to attack him for both his pre-9/11 and post-9/11 policies if you think that they represent a particular view of the world that you oppose.

Oh, I understand your point perfectly, and I agree with the idea that he has leaned towards unilateralism. Many of Bush's defenders seem determined to stress that he's tried very hard to work cooperatively with other nations and that in the cases where efforts have failed, it's France or Germany's or whoever else's fault, not Bush's. And these same people have also stressed the laundry list of the coalition of the willing. I don't buy into the "he's as multilateral as he can be under the circumstances" reasoning very much. It seems to me that He hasn't stressed genuine diplomacy among peers. I've been around long enough to know what that looks like, and I haven't seen very much.

But I don't think it is inconsistent necessarily to attack him for both his pre-9/11 and post-9/11 policies if you think that they represent a particular view of the world that you oppose.

I thought I previously admitted that it's not necessarily inconsistent in response to 'tosk. But I believe that many of the reflexive critics who have complained about both ARE being inconsistent because of their reflexiveness. I'm happy to acknowledge the coherence of the connections you make, but I'm hesitant to charitably assume such coherence exists in the world view of someone unless they've given me reason to think so, as you have.

We don't always agree, but when i make what seems like a reasonable challenge to your line of thought, you usually acknowledge it and respond with something that shows you've though things through quite a bit. This is quite different from the evasive responses that I find in response to many Bush critics, who seem unwilling to face and address hard questions and hard choices.

It's particularly vexing in that I myself am not shy about being a Bush critic. I've never been a fan, and although I think he's responded to the challenge with the best he had inside him, I've always felt he's overmatched by the circumstances he finds himself in. And they're very difficult circumstances. And I keep coming back to stressing that fair-minded people should acknowledge the difficulties, and the dearth of magic bullet options, and evaluate his performance in that light. After all, he's my President, and for all his faults I find him a basically decent human being whose heart is generally in the right place. for me it's a matter of basic human decency and fairness, and I am deeply troubled by those so willing to attribute so much malice to the man.

Brian,

I agree with you to a large extent and thanks, I certainly try to be reasonable. As problematic as I think this Admninstration is, it's one hell of a job and there are no easy solutions. Frankly, I tend to have more sympathy for people that actually have to make decisions-whatever the party--than I do with people that get to sit around and take pot shots.

I agree with you about the reflexive critics and even more, about liberals who attack Bush from the right in order to score debating points, e.g., people who complain that he (or Clinton for that matter) didn't do enough about OBL pre-9/11 when they would have been the first ones complaining about it being immoral if they had gotten him. I think there are plenty of legitimate grounds to criticize Bush without resorting to such games.