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Volume CXXXII, Number 17 |
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In search of a new foreign policy
JAMES BAUMBERGER
COLUMNIST
I'll admit that the pro-war argument had me convinced. I drifted like many Americans into a blind approval of the imminent war with Iraq.
I blame this mostly on myself for accepting Bush's rhetoric at face value. However, I save some blame for the lack of American discourse on any alternatives to armed combat. The Democrats, the media, and even Colin Powell seem resigned to (if not eager for) war.
As I stop to think of the broader policy questions, I am more than bit scared of the implications of an Iraqi war. At the heart of the plans for Iraq is a monumental shift in foreign policy. The new doctrine of the Bush administration would permit preemptive military action against a perceived enemy based on the mere assumption of future aggression. It may seem harmless until one considers a world in which preemption is the dominant military philosophy.
Saddam is crazy, but he isn't stupid. One has to give him credit for knowing that if he ever used weapons of mass destruction against Americans, his reign, and probably his life, would be over in a matter of days. But under the Bush ideology, where possibility trumps probability, such an argument can be brushed aside.
Why is it that the case against Iraq, and by proxy the case for Bush's new doctrine, is so persuasive? Fear, I guess. We've been scared ever since 9/11, and rightfully so to a certain degree. Our president tells us to worry about Saddam, and we do. Rather than focusing on the American youth who won't come back from Iraq alive, we watch Homeland Security ads that do more to scare than to comfort and then we run out to buy duct tape.
The more I thought about this policy, the more I began to question whether it was right for America. And if not, what was?
Enter a recent episode of NBC's The West Wing* that I mistakenly thought would offer a better model for American policy.
In the midst of preparing for his second inaugural address, President Bartlett was faced with an emerging crisis in Africa. A "civil war" in the fictional nation of Equatorial Kundu was quickly becoming a one-sided ethnic slaughter of thousands.
With American inaction weighing heavily on the president's mind, he rhetorically asked, "Why is a Kundunese life worth less to me than an American life?" A staffer responded, "I don't know, sir, but it is."
The staffer's quip instigated a round of presidential soul-searching that culminated in a decision to introduce a new foreign policy doctrine in the upcoming speech.
"We're for freedom of speech, everywhere. We're for freedom to worship, everywhere… freedom from tyranny, everywhere."
American values, everywhere.
It's foreign policy with purely humanitarian motives and our military strength to back it up. It's "liberalism with a grenade launcher."
The theory is that if the world was free, even if by force, we'd all be safer from terrorism.
Would we be better off if humanitarian interests provided the impetus behind our military policy? It is possible this new direction would help repair the diplomatic rift caused by a global sense of America's self-centeredness. It might, however, only serve to shift world perceptions of our egotism from that of protecting our homeland and economic security at all costs to that of forcing our morality upon the globe's "backward" people.
Unfortunately, Bartlett's proposal offers us no better solution in our quest for a sound strategy. Sending our army around the world to raise our flag in the name of American values is tantamount to renewed imperialism.
But it sounds so good, doesn't it?
Regrettably, we live in a world that has more oppression than we could possibly eliminate. More to the point, what little we could accomplish might result in serious consequences.
Let's take Saudi Arabia for example, both the world's largest oil exporter and a perfect example of the tyranny. The kingdom is a repressive and despotic monarchy with little freedom of expression and few rights for women. Yet, we can't exactly send bombs flying into Riyadh without risking global economic depression if things don't go well.
But what about those dying Kundunese? Unfortunately, The West Wing* writer Aaron Sorkin couldn't have picked a less controversial illustration of the Bartlett Doctrine the mass murder in Kundu. Rarely do we have the luxury of such moral straightforwardness as we do in cases of genocide. The president's ultimate military intervention in Kundu was a relative no-brainer.
The real world would be less black and white. The well-intentioned but hugely unrealistic Bartlett plan offers little hope.
Where both the Bartlett and Bush doctrines fail is not so much in their objectives, but in their methods. The values are not at issue. We certainly have a right to defend ourselves against foreign enemies, and there is nothing wrong with actively promoting American liberty (just so long as it's not at gunpoint, save in instances like Kundu).
The problem then must have less to do with the actual policy objectives and more to do with how we accomplish them.
Excessive militarism would have a devastating impact on global stability. Instead we should secure our nation and spread American values with a diplomatic strategy that emphasizes morality and multilateralism.
America is the world's only dominant military, economic, and diplomatic power. Therefore, we shouldn't underestimate our ability to affect change without the use of laser-guided bombs and special ops forces.
If we adopt a softer diplomacy based on both morality and international security, we will gain the world respect, and leverage, necessary to push our objectives in a peaceful way.
And if we are successful in sponsoring freedom in the world, maybe countries like Iraq will be a thing of the past.
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