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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 49thMIMOMander who wrote (11454)	11/24/2001 9:59:18 PM
From: SirRealist	Respond to of 281500

Though I understand there is sometimes a lack of foreign policy follow-through when administrations change from party to party, there are times when a policy change is in order simply because world dynamics have changed. Commitment to a once-useful policy that is no longer, is akin to extremism, where one swears allegiance to a policy instead of common sense and effectiveness. Trying to attribute inferior foreign policy choices as a product of two-partyism, however, seems a great stretch, or at the very least, a profound over-simplification. As well, the ultimate test of a policy is whether it effectively produces results close to what was sought, and secondarily, to determine if any unintended side effects resulted that exceeded the sought-after gain. I'd argue that our foreign policy record is mixed... but it has succeeded well enough to make us the pre-eminent power of self-determination existing in the world today. And thus, our foreign policy is better than the foreign policy of most other nations. Whether or not this causes some to hate us should not be a serious consideration in the formulation of policy unless the hate creates a significant armed opposition trying to kill us. And Hussein, Bin Laden, Gaddafi, Khomeini, Nidal, etc. etc. never possessed the power to be 'significant' as a foe, because even though they may possess lethal power, they lack the type of power necessary to cause us to surrender our nation to them. Even with the most erroneous of foreign policies, such as I consider the Vietnam War to have been, there was no chance that North Vietnam would rule the US. So how much we are hated is, almost exclusively, nothing we should sweat. I believe it is in our self-critiques that our errors find correction. I'm not saying the opinions of other nations do not matter. I'm just saying they matter less than is imagined by those who denounce us, and that is as it should be.