Book Faults Bush for Pursuing Notion of American 'Empire'
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Clark Wants More Foreign Aid, New Department to Handle It
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A05
A new book by Wesley K. Clark, the retired Army general running for president, calls for a major expansion in U.S. foreign assistance programs and establishment of a Department of International Assistance to manage the initiative.
"Focusing our humanitarian and developmental efforts through a single, responsible department will help us bring the same kind of sustained attention to alleviating deprivation, misery, ethnic conflict and poverty that we have brought to the problem of warfare," Clark writes.
In a searing critique, Clark accuses the Bush administration of carrying out a wrenching turn in U.S. foreign policy away from traditional American principles. He cites what he says has been an overemphasis on unilateralism and overreliance on the U.S. military to pursue the notion of "a new American empire."
Clark argues for adoption of "a more collaborative, collegiate" U.S. strategy marked by renewed cooperation with such international organizations as the United Nations and NATO and backed by substantial economic and political development aid.
But Clark puts no price tag on this proposed boost in aid and provides few specifics about how the United States should proceed. He focuses more on articulating problems than detailing solutions.
Release of the book, titled "Winning Modern Wars" and shipped to stores last week, coincides with Clark's entrance this month into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Publisher Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs said the book was not conceived as a campaign manifesto. Osnos, who published another book by Clark two years ago on the retired general's military experiences, said he suggested in May that Clark pursue a second book that would combine and expand on much of Clark's commentary as a CNN analyst during the Iraq war. "It certainly wasn't part of any grand plan," Osnos said in a phone interview.
But while Clark was writing the book, he was considering running for president. Now that Clark is a candidate, the book is sure to be read as a political document for insights into his views on foreign and national security policy.
The first part of the book reiterates Clark's criticism of the conduct of the Iraq war. Although the ouster of the government of Saddam Hussein in just three weeks has widely been hailed as a military success, Clark maintains that the war plan contained "fundamental flaws" that raised the level of risk to U.S. troops.
He faults the administration for skimping on the forces made available to military commanders and for shortchanging postwar planning.
He also blames it for failing to enlist support from the United Nations and NATO, which, he says, would have provided greater international legitimacy and additional foreign troops and other resources.
"It has thus far been a perfect example of dominating an enemy force but failing to secure the victory," Clark says of the administration's experience in Iraq.
Similarly critical of the conduct of the broader war on terrorism, Clark argues that the administration has blundered by focusing the nation on a war against Iraq rather than keeping its sights on al Qaeda, the perpetrator of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Clark contends that this "flawed strategy" has led to a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and the underestimated postwar challenges in Iraq.
The larger point of the book deals with what Clark considers the damaging consequences of the administration's pursuit of a "quasi-imperial vision" aimed at liberating people around the world. This strategy, among other things, is imposing a severe strain on the U.S. Army, which, in Clark's words, "isn't an army of empire -- at least not yet." It was built for combat, not occupation, Clark says.
Clark argues that the whole notion of an American empire runs counter to deep historical currents in this country. The "American way," he says, "was not to rely on coercion and hard pressure but on persuasion and shared vision." Borrowing a term from Joseph S. Nye Jr., dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Clark says American power in the 20th century was marked by "soft power" based on diplomacy and persuasion.
Soon after taking office, the Bush administration launched the country on a different course, Clark says, reflecting "a more unilateralist, balance-of-power stamp." He cites the U.S. withdrawal from international efforts to address global warming under the Kyoto treaty and the decision to proceed with a national missile defense system. The administration's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks only reinforced these defiant, high-handed tendencies, Clark argues.
"Overnight, U.S. foreign policy became not only unilateralist but moralistic, intensely patriotic and assertive, planning military action against Iraq and perhaps other states in the Middle East, and intimating the New American Empire," he writes.
The result, he says, has been damaging to long-term U.S. interests. The administration's approach has hampered counter-terrorism efforts, undercut NATO and "turned upside down five decades of work to establish an international system to help reduce conflict," he writes.
To reverse these trends, Clark urges measures to soften America's image again and place renewed emphasis on nonmilitary options.
In the war on terrorism in particular, he recommends greater focus "on getting at Islamic terrorism's root causes," including extreme Wahhabite ideology, funding from Saudi Arabia and madrassas, or Islamic schools, in Pakistan.
The difficulties confronting U.S. forces in stabilizing Iraq, Clark suggests, are likely to dampen the administration's earlier ambitions. He endorses the administration's plan to try to accelerate the turnover of political authority to the Iraqis, building up Iraqi security forces and gradually drawing down U.S. troop levels.
Even so, he predicts, the United States will still have as many as 75,000 forces in Iraq next summer, and the U.S. military will need several years and additional resources to recover from being stretched as much as it has been by the Iraqi conflict.
"So soon after the defeat of Iraq, the image of U.S. armed forces as the heart of a new empire -- as a liberating force sweeping through the states of the Middle East, brushing aside terrorist-sponsoring regimes to create a new American empire of Western-style democracies -- seems to be a fading vision," he writes.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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