I’ve just finished reading Glenn Reynolds’s interesting column in The Guardian in which he speculates on the prospective foreign policy of a future Kerry Administration. He outlines three alternatives:
- Kerry as GWB (continuing the policies of the current administration)
- Kerry as Carter (pursuing a pacifist or isolationist course)
- Kerry as Lyndon Johnson (out to prove how macho he is)
I’ve suggested that third alternative myself.
I wonder if the real concern isn’t that Mr. Kerry will try each policy out in turn to see which one fits best. Isn’t that what his history suggests?
I might suggest a fourth alternative: Kerry as George H.W. Bush (continues the empire building with diplomacy to get the rest of the world on board).
I don’t see the flip-flopper thing when he’s pushed on a moral question. His political activism after his time in Vietnam was very tenacious. America can lead the world instead of subduing it.
You may be right. But is that a good thing? Let’s not romanticize Bush 41 (I didn’t vote for him): it’s pretty clear that the price he paid for his coalition was leaving Saddam in place. That’s one of the reasons I opposed Gulf War I—its final outcome was obvious to me from the outset and I wasn’t convinced that those objectives were worth our fighting for.
As I see it there’s only one good argument for leaving Saddam in place after the Gulf War: national sovereignty. But, again as I see it, a national sovereignty argument undermines the case for going to war with him in the first place. That leaves realpolitik.
But realpolitik is what has gotten us into the mess we’re in in the Middle East with repressive dictators pauperizing their people with tacit U. S. support. All for perfectly good realpolitik grounds.
To make a convincing argument that what Bush 41 did was correct you’re going to have to justify the deaths of all of the Iraqis killed by Saddam during the 90’s and all that died under sanctions. Good luck.
And, of course, there’s not a shred of evidence there’s any resemblance whatsoever between G. H. W. and Kerry. Bush had spent a lifetime in diplomacy and influence in foreign policy matters. Kerry has spent a lifetime in the Senate. Bush had the most Hamiltonian foreign policy of any president of my lifetime. There’s scarcely a shred of Hamiltonianism in the Kerry foreign policy.
While it may or may not seem apparent right now, but what if Kerry took the approach of…*gasp* Woodrow Wilson? I don’t think it too much of a strech, considering Kerry’s strong support of global governance and supranational institutions. Of course, according to the Republicans, this means France will have the capability to stop anything the United States could dream of.
I mean, yes, Woodrow’s own League of Nations turned out to be a colossal failure, but this was largely due to the unwillingness of the U.S. Congress to give up a little perceived sovereignty…
From my perspective, the past 10-20 years have seen a rampant increase in power of the global financial institutions (IMF, World Bank), all of whom have no democratic checks-and-balances. My hope is that Kerry is able to reel in these ‘development’ institutions and give fiscal sovereignty back to the third world nations who are capable of spending their own money…
Boy this really turned into a meandering rant, didn’t it? And I really just wanted to post to say that I enjoy your blog! Cheers!
From my perspective, the past 10-20 years have seen a rampant increase in power of the global financial institutions (IMF, World Bank), all of whom have no democratic checks-and-balances. My hope is that Kerry is able to reel in these ‘development’ institutions and give fiscal sovereignty back to the third world nations who are capable of spending their own money…
One of the many issues that has received little attention in the campaign is Third World debt. It’s a knotty problem IMO. On the one hand lending money to undemocratic and repressive leaders (and most of the leaders in the Third World are both) does little to help the people there. On the other cutting off aid leaves little hope for these same people to get out of the fix they’re in.
My own preference would be to discourage macro-lending projects in favor of micro-, small scale, direct to individual loans. But that’s not a solution that seems to appeal to the green-eyeshade folks of either party.
Thanks for dropping by and for the kind words. Please stop back. There’s always something going on and I try to maintain a thoughtful tone on most subjects.