Bush's Dogmatic Foreign Policy

[patrioticintellect]

The dogma that George W. Bush has come to support is in his mind undisputed, authoritative, and not to be questioned or doubted. I'm not talking about his religious bend toward Christian fundamentalism that has resulted in his incitement of a holy war between Islam and Christianity. No, I am referring to the dogma that he has laid down in writing in the form of a doctrine, a doctrine that will determine how he is remembered in history books for years to come. Essentially, history will decide based on his doctrine whether or not he was right for laying down the beliefs he had and enforcing them.

Doctrines are representations of a president's foreign policy and hold the reasoning behind the majority of the decision-making that goes on in the realm of foreign policy during a president's term(s) in office. Some have explicitly laid out their views in a doctrine while others only touched on their dogmatic views towards foreign policy in his idea of foreign policy in comparison to our current president's doctrine, which is now well-known for its calls for self-defense and pre-emption. Pulled from Joseph Ellis' biography on George Washington titled "His Excellency" here is a sign of what we had in store for us, which can also be found in his "Farewell Address":

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

As one can see, he holds much of the philosophy that George W. Bush has put down in pen in his Bush Doctrine. He distrusted other countries and one can presume that he would not have been in favor of an United Nations based on his words in his address.

The next piece of dogma expressing our nation's views on foreign policy came in this 1793 Memo from Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to Washington. In it, it expressed how to deal with France. Notice the amount of deliberation and the abundance of questions in the memo in regards to the matter. This feature is most certainly not in existence in our government today as George W. Bush has surrounded himself with friends who all inflate the hubris surrounding his beliefs. Jefferson's foreign policy was grounded in "pragmatic realism", a type of foreign policy that a few Americans wish America would return to.

A far more notable use of the doctrine was used by Monroe and is perhaps the first president to be remembered for having a doctrine for foreign policy (that is, if you pick up a history book from a high school and open to the pages on Monroe). This doctrine "proclaimed that European powers would no longer colonize or interfere with the affairs of the nations of the Americas. The United States planned to stay neutral in wars between European powers and their colonies. However, if these latter types of wars were to occur in the Americas, the United States would view such action as hostile."

Monroe's doctrine created a legacy that influenced foreign policy under James Polk, Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Essentially, it has been a guide for when and how we can intervene in other countries to protect our interests. That John F. Kennedy cited the doctrine more than 130 years later should lead every American to wonder who will and when will the Bush doctrine be cited? What further atrocities will it lend its support to? Our nation has a history of using doctrines or precedents to justify any move we make in our interests whether our actions be moral or not.

Andrew Jackson is known to have practiced "populist interventionism", where getting involved in foreign affairs only occurs when the interests of the people are threatened. In his Second Inauguration speech, he shined a light on his foreign policy views:

The foreign policy adopted by our Government soon after the formation of our present Constitution, and very generally pursued by successive Administrations, has been crowned with almost complete success, and has elevated our character among the nations of the earth. To do justice to all and to submit to wrong from none has been during my Administration its governing maxim, and so happy have been its results that we are not only at peace with all the world, but have few causes of controversy, and those of minor importance, remaining unadjusted.

Harry S. Truman put forth the Truman Doctrine, which was a containment policy. The policy was a proponent behind the fight against a "domino effect". Truman and other government officials feared that Greece and Turkey would fall to communist insurrections.

The Bush Doctrine seems to have taken the Truman Doctrine a step further. For one, while much of the Cold War policy may have been or may be a foundation for the Bush policy, it does not purport to be containing anything. It does not look to keep the WMDs under one regime until they can be removed by inspectors or foreign officials. It does not put forth plans to keep terrorism in one country. The only part of it that resembles the containment policy of Truman is the rhetoric that the Bush administration spouts about "fighting the terrorists there instead of here". That blind rhetoric endangers the world internationally but secures America as terrorists expand their extremism to other countries in the Middle East and outside of it hoping to garner more support.

The "new Communism" (terrorism) is allowed to spread for ulterior motives the Bush administration have, (which most likely cannot be found in the Bush doctrine not even in the footnotes). However, one can look at this document.

Eisenhower and Kennedy expanded the Truman Doctrine's containment so that it could better shield America economically, politically, and geopolitically. Following intervention in the Dominican Republic, Johnson laid out a doctrine stating, "domestic revolution in the Western Hemisphere would no longer be a local matter when 'the object is the establishment of a Communist dictatorship'".

A foreign policy dogma that would be applied to the Middle East did not come about until Nixon laid out his doctrine. The Nixon doctrine said:

* First, the United States will keep all of its treaty commitments.
* Second, we shall provide a shield if a nuclear power threatens the freedom of a nation allied with us or of a nation whose survival we consider vital to our security.
* Third, in cases involving other types of aggression, we shall furnish military and economic assistance when requested in accordance with our treaty commitments. But we shall look to the nation directly threatened to assume the primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense.

The doctrine was also applied by the Nixon administration in the Persian Gulf region, with military aid to Iran and Saudi Arabia, so that these U.S. allies could undertake the responsibility of ensuring peace and stability in the region. According to Michael Klare, author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency (New York: Henry Holt, 2004), application of the Nixon Doctrine "opened the floodgates" of U.S. military aid to allies in the Persian Gulf, and helped set the stage for the Carter Doctrine and for the subsequent direct U.S. military involvement of the Gulf War and the Iraq War.

The Carter Doctrine closely resembles the way we do foreign policy today but the point must be made that it was responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan unlike Bush's doctrine that was not a result of an invasion of any kind. Carter's doctrine set forth the policy that military force would be used if necessary to defend our national interests in the Persian Gulf. His idea that the Persian Gulf was of national interest was not new and in fact began with Roosevelt. From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_doctrine">Wikipedia</a> (not the best source, but I like the wording and this has references):

The Persian Gulf region was first proclaimed to be of national interest to the United States during World War II. Petroleum is of central importance to modern armies, and the United States—as the world's leading oil producer at that time—supplied most of the oil for the Allied armies. Many American strategists were concerned that the war would dangerously reduce the U.S. oil supply, and so they sought to establish good relations with Saudi Arabia, a kingdom with large oil reserves. On February 16, 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the "the defense of Saudi Arabia is vital to the defense of the United States." On February 14, 1945, while returning from the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia on the Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal, the first time a U.S. president had visited the Persian Gulf region. (During Operation Desert Shield in 1990, this landmark meeting between Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud was cited by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney as one of the justifications for sending troops to protect Saudi Arabia's border.)

The Persian Gulf region continued to be regarded as an area of vital importance to the United States during the Cold War. Three Cold War United States Presidential doctrines—the Truman Doctrine, the Eisenhower Doctrine, and the Nixon Doctrine—played roles in the formulation of the Carter Doctrine. The Truman Doctrine, which stated that the United States would send military aid to countries which were threatened by Soviet communism, was used to strengthen the security of Iran and Saudi Arabia. In October 1950, President Harry Truman wrote to King Ibn Saud that "the United States is interested in the preservation of the independence and territorial integrity of Saudi Arabia. No threat to your Kingdom could occur which would not be a matter of immediate concern to the United States." The Eisenhower Doctrine in turn called for U.S. troops to be sent to the Middle East to defend U.S. allies against their Soviet-backed adversaries. Finally, application of the Nixon Doctrine provided military aid to Iran and Saudi Arabia so that these U.S. allies could ensure peace and stability in the region. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan prompted the restatement of U.S. interests in the region in the form of the Carter Doctrine.

That national interest has taken on a much more magnified role than ever before yet that role has been hidden from the public as often as possible by the Bush administration. Seeming to think we don't know our history, they pretend like petroleum is no reason for being in Iraq. However, that is just the reason but few Americans are the history buffs that they should be. That said, we and the media should ask fervently, "Why do they seek to hide the fact that we are preserving petroleum?"

Following the Carter Doctrine, the Reagan Doctrine allowed for overt and covert aid to be given to anti-Communist fighters in countries where communism threatened a nation's "freedom". While Reagan's foreign policy under this doctrine was reckless (the libertarian Cato Institute didn't favor this policy too well) and undiplomatic, conservatives found in Reagan's policy something to cheer about (much like they cheer on the "war on terrorism" today).

And when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall fell, the timeline of past foreign policies became justified and the cheerleaders got what they wished for. America was "safe" at last. Whether that fear had been manufactured or not, the end had been achieved. The means were excused from being scrutinized.

It's tough to compare Bush's foreign policy or his doctrine when considering the fact that Communism was stopped in its tracks. One would have to say that Bush wants Islamic extremism to be stopped in its tracks. But if it is stopped, than what will we do? Who will we fight? How will the no-bid contracts be found? Won't the oil conferences between America, Saudi Arabia, and other nations be boring?

The means for achieving a halt to the "domino effect" was wrong, immoral, and rough on any country other than us (except for when our innocent soldiers had to sacrifice their lives for the foreign policy doctrines). But it got its end. That we don't know what the Bush administration's end really is in the scheme of his foreign policy and that we are told to expect more than ten years of this fighting should let us know that Bush's doctrine is a beginning and his enemy of choice is a beginning and it will go on for sixty years if not longer just like our fight against communism.

It was done before. It can be done again. And it is being done again. Except this time the enemy we are fighting doesn't have as concrete of a position as communism had. It's much harder to hit our foes who do not inhabit a specific country and who cannot be linked to a specific thing (a Berlin wall that divided a country). While on the surface that looks like a weakness, think about all the freedoms that gives our government and this administration. Any country can be invaded at any time for any national interest as long as they can make us believe that said country holds Islamic extremism which is a threat to our freedom, that country's freedom, and the world and so on and so forth.

The dogma of Bush has looked into the past. The men who brought communism to its knees are looking to bring the next form of government that stands in our way to its knees. The brand of goverment being chosen to fight is one heavily rooted in Muslim traditions. And they are taking it down so that they can impose Christianity and democracy and also begin a colonialistic takeover of the nation's resources through permanent occupation.

Members of Africa must shudder at what is being done with the help of Israel because they have not been free from European colonialism for too long. They know what lies in the future for the Middle East. But speak up, and they will be pinned down as proponents of Islamic extremism and harborers of terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda. After all, Africa still has plenty of resources left to plunder. Check out that oil in the Sudan. And in fact, they have been accused of harboring al-Qaeda already anyways.

History will file away this president perhaps noting how controversial his foreign policy was. One can only hope that initially he will be regarded as a catastrophe or a miserable failure. But if his supporters continue to fill the White House and Capitol Hill, they will continue to wrongfully vindicate George W. Bush so that half a century from now little school children will read about how "great" Bush was and how he deserves to be compared to the greats like Washington, Monroe, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Truman and Kennedy who all spearheaded ballsy and provocative foreign policy plans for great change to benefit America.