A Reckless Foreign Policy: A New Way of Thinking Required

President George W. Bush’s foreign policy can only be described as one that embraced lying to America and her friends, militaristic belligerence and arrogantly embracing American exceptionalism in order to achieve the goals of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). PNAC’s goal was that “American leadership is both good for America and good for the world.” PNAC supported Ronald Reagan’s principle of “peace through strength” and embraced the notion of moral clarity.

Today, except for Ron Paul, every Republican presidential candidate embraces Reagan’s principles and the notion of “My Country, Right or Wrong.” They call Ron Paul’s approach to foreign policy dangerous.

Andrew Bacevich, Professor of International Relations at Boston University, certainly does not agree with the Republican stance, for he states that “in the efficacy of military power almost inevitably breeds the temptation to put that power to work. ‘ Peace through strength’ easily enough becomes ‘peace through war.’”

No one should count on the present administration to think differently than Republicans, either. According to The National Interest magazine, ” Military outlays under President Obama are higher than under President Bush.”

Obama has embraced unilateral military actions, accelerated use of unmanned drones, and continued a number of Bush administration policies, including rendition and suspension of habeas corpus.

Mark Lagon, International Relations and Security Chair at Georgetown University’s Master of Science in Foreign Service Program, states, ” The Obama presidency has regularly avoided asserting meaningful soft power, particularly in its relations with three countries-Iran, Russia, and Egypt-where it might have made a difference not only for those countries but for American interests as well. His reaction to the challenges these countries have posed to the US suggest that it is not soft power itself that Obama doubts, but America’s moral standing to project it.”

Since Obama failed at employing soft power, America’s leaders are now scrambling to justify a war with Iran. We hear the same lying, saber rattling, and displays of American arrogance regarding Iran’s possible possession of Nuclear weapons as we did regarding Iraq under Bush.

In 2010, Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that the US military has a plan to attack Iran.

However, Mullen expresses caution, “We haven’t had a connection with Iran since 1979. Even in the darkest days of the Cold War, we had links to the Soviet Union. We are not talking to Iran, so we don’t understand each other. If something happens, it’s virtually assured that we won’t get it right — that there will be miscalculation which would be extremely dangerous in that part of the world.”

Representative Dennis Kucinich, in response to Truthdig’s Kasia Anderson question, “Do you think anything can be done with respect to a potential conflict with Iran?” He said, “Yes! Back off. That’s what we need to do.

“There’s always a certain group of people — Republicans and Democrats alike — who will vote for war. They’ll vote to fund wars, seeing it their patriotic duty to do so. We need a new type of thinking. We have become so enamored of war as a nation we can’t break from it. If you look at the Republican debate, it’s all about war with them — all but Ron Paul.

It’s simply not reasonable to ever think we can maintain favorable foreign relations with other nations through belligerence and coercion, forcing our way on others or threats to do so from the end of a bayonet/cowardly dropping a bomb on them from ten to forty thousand feet.


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