What is left unsaid
February 10, 2008
FOR ALL the high drama and personality clashes of this primary season, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama have said far too little about crucial issues of foreign and security policy that the next president will have to address. And as the economy worsens, the temptation for these three senators - one of whom, presumably, will be the next president - to ignore major looming problems abroad will only grow.
Apart from repeating their talking points on troop levels in Iraq, the would-be commanders-in-chief have mostly kept a discreet silence both about grand strategy and particular hot spots on the map. Whoever is elected in November will not have the luxury of evading these issues. President Bush will be leaving his successor a daunting legacy of squandered opportunities, diminished influence, and dangerous mistakes.
Achieving the least harmful end to the war in Iraq will be the most conspicuous need. But instead of arguing mainly about troop levels and timetables for withdrawal, candidates should be telling voters how they propose to avoid sectarian conflict, a lasting Al Qaeda infestation, and Iranian dominance in Iraq.
Undoing the Bush doctrine
Iraq cannot be disentangled from rivalries in the surrounding region. And the next president cannot hope to tackle those complex conflicts without scrapping a failed Bush doctrine of superpower self-sufficiency.
Obama has said he opposes "the Bush doctrine of not talking to leaders we don't like." But what would he replace it with?
Clinton has said "we have a failed policy in Afghanistan as well as in Iraq" and articulates well the problems in the region, but is less clear on the solutions.
As for McCain, he has offered little detail on how he would approach the many currents at work in the Middle East, apart from energetically defending last year's troop surge in Iraq.
Voters deserve a deeper discussion. The candidates ought to spell out their views of what Bush has labeled a war on terror. In the aftermath of Sept. 11, US foreign policy has been permeated by the nebulous notion of a long war against an enemy defined only as "evil."
This year's campaign would benefit from a critical evaluation of Bush's war on terror. This discussion must acknowledge that Al Qaeda and like-minded groups are committing more terrorist acts today than they did before the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq - not within the United States, perhaps, but in many other places around the world.
Instead of sowing democracy in the Muslim world, Bush's war on terror has led to billowing instability from Gaza and the West Bank to Lebanon, from Syria and Iraq to Turkey and Iran, and from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
The candidate most apt to rectify Bush's errors is the one who best understands that radical Islamism is above all a threat to states and societies of the Muslim world - that the jihadist movement is both cause and symptom of an internecine conflict there. The threat from stateless holy warriors should be countered with international intelligence cooperation, police action, and diplomatic initiatives that make America more, not less, respected in the Muslim world.
Credibility in the Middle East
Accordingly, the candidates should spell out their plans for shepherding Israelis and Palestinians into a negotiated two-state solution of their conflict. Such an agreement will not come easily, and it will not miraculously heal the other political and social maladies afflicting Arab and Muslim lands. Regardless, the next president must not waste several years - as both Bush and Bill Clinton did - before committing presidential power and prestige to a negotiated end of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
The candidates should also describe what they are willing to offer Iran if it verifiably suspends its enrichment of uranium. This would mean replacing Bush's fantasies of regime change and coercive threats with old-fashioned haggling.
Such a change in statecraft would also help outside the Middle East. A similar conversion to diplomacy and military restraint will be needed to cope with instability in Pakistan and with the growing tendency of Russia and China to collaborate in counter-balancing American unilateralism under Bush.
Without saying as much, Bush himself has shown what it might mean to abandon his good-vs.-evil rhetoric and its assumption that rogue regimes can only be coerced into changing their behavior. Bush's deal with North Korea offered Kim Jong Il the economic and political benefits he wants in exchange for complete and verifiable denuclearization.
The candidates should seize on this example to outline their plans for coping with Iran's nuclear program and its drive for regional predominance. And no contest for the White House should exclude a serious testing of ideas about the proper American approach to China - its swelling financial power, its military modernization, and its pursuit of energy reserves around the world, particularly in Africa.
A complicated world
The public also deserves to know what the next president would do about Burma, Darfur, and Sri Lanka - places where the immediate threat to US economic or military interests is not obvious, but where human suffering is acute.
And what of the near nations to our south, which have been all but ignored since Sept. 11? The many fitful democracies there, from Argentina to Brazil, need economic and political attention from the United States. If not, China will be happy to fill the gap. And all of the candidates need a policy ready for the inevitable death of Fidel Castro in Cuba - an event that will be sudden even as it is utterly predictable - the best opportunity in 60 years to forge a more rational policy there.
The candidates should be talking to voters about these matters. Whichever one takes the oath of office next winter will need, and should want, a mandate to change America's relations with the rest of the world.
also... an article proposing a national single-day primary.
and here's an interesting article, published locally via syndication... addressing bill clinton's rabid comments a about obama... it seems that bill wants to matter... eventually.
and here's an interesting article, published locally via syndication... addressing bill clinton's rabid comments a about obama... it seems that bill wants to matter... eventually.