res- the nuclear arms treaty with Russia is decent, but it's not exactly a major accomplishment. it doesn't call on either side to do anything they weren't already doing and the limits don't kick in for a long time. The treaty thus reflects reality rather than changing it.
Bush showed real leadership in skillfully moving us away from the constraints imposed by the ABM treaty and pressing forward with missile Defense. Both of these initiatives were believed by many "impressive people" to be dangerous (at the time). Clinton's team was unable to move us forward in this area. He forged a relationship with Mr. Putin, and successfully created the environment in which abrogating from the treaty did not in any way undermine our relationship with Russia.
North Korea is the missile proliferation leader. It is selling SCUD missiles to Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Pakistan to name a few. Moving forward on Missile Defense has effectively altered our position relative to the NK threat.
This was a high-order foreign policy success story.
As for the Chinese airspace problem, to the extent that the president "settled" it, it was by walking back from the bellicose, truculent rhetoric that he and his people had been spouting beforehand. He gets real points for that in my book, to be sure, but it's definitely one of those "growth in office" kinds of things that drives right-wingers crazy.
The President handled the screw up by the Chinese well. They eventually discovered their pilot (who probably watched too many re-runs of Officer and a Gentleman and thought he was Tom Cruise) was no "Top Gun".
We got our crew back safely, and the Chinese saved face by getting a "we're sorry" memo from our Ambassador. Many pundits criticized his tough stance, but in the end it was demonstrated to be the right tone.
Another high-order foreign policy success story.
As for Afghanistan, he certainly gets high points for that, I agree--but I'm not sure that the Bush administration's policy there was significantly different from what any other administration's would have been under the same circumstances.
Afghanistan was handled extremely well. Unlike Carter many years before who micromanaged every aspect of the military, he gave our military planners the free-hand to plan and execute as they saw fit. In the final analysis, an area thought by many pundits to be the most difficult in the world to win a military victory against the Taliban in (without large bloodshed), was won by a few hundred American soldiers and outstanding coordination with our allies and local forces.
res- And as for North Korea, if you can find "a diplomatic way to reunite the country and end the barbaric fascism which exists," you're a better man than most, since a hell of a lot of impressive people have been trying to do that for half a century without much progress. Some kind of tough-minded engagement seemed to be making some headway in recent years, although I never expected all that much from it except to lower the tension a bit.
This statement goes to the heart of the matter. Smart people have tried and failed. Bush is trying and succeeding in one foreign policy initiative after another. And he's only been in office just over two years.
Yet, the pundits just criticize.
Michael@theotherpointofview.com |
