Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jim-thompson who wrote (499404)	11/27/2003 11:45:41 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Get Foreign Policy Back On Course By Warren Christopher Thursday, November 27, 2003; Page A43 As the Democratic presidential primary season enters its decisive phase, foreign policy unexpectedly stands at center stage. The candidates will be measured by whether they continue tactical quarreling over the past or present a strategic vision for the future. Under normal circumstances, a change of party controlling the White House does not produce a turnabout in the nation's foreign policy. While new administrations may make minor course corrections, especially on specific issues raised in the campaign, they typically discover that they agree more than disagree with their predecessors' foreign policy goals and approaches. In the case of the current administration, however, fundamental departures from existing foreign policy have been the norm from the outset. President Bush took office with no perceptible mandate for radical change in foreign policy. Yet, immediately upon assuming the presidential mantle, he set about reversing nearly every major foreign policy initiative that carried the Clinton imprint. He announced that the United States would stand aside from the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and he denounced eight proposed international agreements, even purporting to "unsign" one of them. As his direction became clear to the world, our friends and allies began to question, and then to dissociate themselves from, the actions of the U.S. government. Now, three years into the Bush II era, American standing and credibility in the world have dropped to their lowest point in decades. If the major premise of President Bush's policy changes had been correct -- that the United States does not need help or consensus to work its will in the world -- the loss of international friends might be less important. But the opposite is true. With two soldiers killed on average every day this month, Iraq is a quagmire in which the United States, by the telling of its own secretary of defense, "slogs" rather than skates. And at a moment when we need help, the United Nations and major powers other than Britain are loath to help us fight, finance or fashion a way out. Against this backdrop, Democratic primary voters need to know what the party's candidate intends to do to reverse the alienation of our friends and the dramatic weakening of our reputation as a stable, reliable actor on the world stage. While some candidates have begun to address individual issues, what is needed is a comprehensive strategy to right the ship. Following is an example: • We must regain the trust and goodwill of our traditional allies. The Bush administration has treated our allies as nuisances or worse. When the president of South Korea visited shortly after the Bush inauguration to seek support for an opening to North Korea, he was sent packing in humiliation. When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld labeled as "Old Europe" our major NATO allies who refused to sign off reflexively on our Iraq venture, the White House relished rather than apologized for the slights. We can restore this lost trust, but it will require sustained, dramatic steps. I suggest that on the heels of the election of a Democrat in 2004, the new president make a reconciliation trip to our major allies (Ankara and Seoul as well as Paris and Berlin), assuring them that respect and friendship rather than fiat will be the new order of the day in U.S. foreign policy. • We must support and strengthen the United Nations. While repairing one on one our relationships with allies, we must also acknowledge and embrace the importance of the United Nations. Despite glowing rhetoric, the current administration has undercut and downgraded that body in dealings on Iraq and Afghanistan and in U.N.-sponsored treaty negotiations. The issues of North Korea's nuclear arsenal and global terrorism remain, as before the war in Iraq, the gravest threats to our national security. These issues cannot be addressed without international cooperation, and the United Nations, imperfect though it may be, is a vital part of the solution. • We must clearly and explicitly raise the standard for launching unilateral preemptive war. As we now know, the Bush administration's decision to wage war in Iraq was grounded in faulty intelligence and false urgency. Contrary to the impression created by the administration, Iraq was not responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks, and there was no proof that Iraq was in league with al Qaeda. Similarly, Niger did not sell uranium to Iraq, Iraq was not on the cusp of nuclear capability and Saddam Hussein did not have at the ready stores of weapons of mass destruction. In sum, the United States launched a preemptive war without convincing evidence that Iraq constituted an imminent threat to our nation and without any effective plan for dealing with the aftermath of a military victory. This should not be permitted to happen again, and we must reassure the world that it will not. While we cannot rule out the need for future preemptive action, we should announce that we will take such a step only when we possess clear and convincing evidence that there is a demonstrably imminent threat to our security and that we have a sound plan for the future of the country involved. • We must act aggressively to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Bush administration's role in resolving this critical confrontation has been halfhearted and largely passive. The mid-level emissaries dispatched to the region with fanfare have returned empty-handed after a disturbingly short time because they lacked the president's authority to press the parties to settle. This failure of U.S. leadership is particularly distressing because conflict fatigue and powerful challenges to both Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon from within their own constituencies make this a propitious moment for a breakthrough. In a new administration, the parties ought to be pressed to resolve their differences by the president, the secretary of state and perhaps a high-level emissary with explicit presidential authority. It is time for the Democratic presidential aspirants to do more than quibble about who was right in the past. The issue is what their reason and instinct tell them must be done to extract America from the foreign policy abyss in which it finds itself. The voters will be listening. The writer was secretary of state from 1993 to 1997. He is co-chairman of the Pacific Council on International Policy. washingtonpost.com