President Bush: Foreign Policy Failures

Until now, I have been fairly easy on President Bush. The issues that I have discussed have been, no doubt, some of his finest deeds as president.

Well, for all you Bush-haters out there (and I know there’s a large number of you) I’m sure you’ll enjoy today’s entry.

As noted last week, President Bush’s foreign policy has resulted in a number of very impressive initiatives that not only helped us, but the rest of the world as well.

While those gains should be applauded, they do not absolve him for the complete foreign policy failures that he has managed.

I’ll deal with these one by one.

Russia

While our dealings with Russia have hardly been a complete failure, I would certainly not categorize them as a success either.

Over the past 12-18 months, Russia has really ramped up the anti-American rhetoric; so much so that you would think it was 1984, not 2009. They’ve pranced around our hemisphere and gotten cozy with similar despotic regimes like Chavez’s of Venezuela and Castro’s of Cuba, while flexing their military might during war games with the former.

Personally, this doesn’t worry me too much as I think Russia is far more bark then bite. While they are strong militarily, they still do not approach our armed forces capabilities.

And if you think our economy is bad, oh man, you should check out there’s! Rampant unemployment, inflation through the roof and corruption…well, everywhere.

That is not to say that we do not have to take them seriously, but I do not view them as the menace that some do.

Where we failed with Russia, however, was during this summer’s invasion of Georgia by Russian forces.

Georgia is one of our staunchest allies. They have done everything in their power to get closer to the U.S. They have opened up their markets to embrace capitalism and are on the road to becoming a member of NATO.

As all of you know, during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics, Russian tanks rolled through Georgian towns. Their buildings were bombed, their people killed all while the rest of the world was in awe of the spectacle going on in the People’s Republic.

What was our response to a close ally, a sovereign nation being invaded simply because they wanted to join NATO?

Words. Words that fell on deaf ears.

This had to have been incredibly disappointing to the Georgians, as none of their efforts to get closer to the U.S. prevented an attack that resulted in the loss of land, a destroyed infrastructure and many civilian and military deaths.

This showed Georgians, and the rest of the world for that matter, that being an ally of the U.S. isn’t what it used to be.

North Korea

What?

North Korea?

Didn’t they agree to end their nuclear weapons program?

Didn’t they destroy their nuclear cooling tower to prove their cooperation?

Wasn’t this a success?

Oh, how a few months can change everything…

For a while, this section would’ve appeared in the foreign policy success entry. But as the end of the Bush Administration gets closer, so does the realization that North Korea will, once again, begin developing nuclear weaponry.

If you’re not aware of the latest developments in North Korea, let me bring you up to speed.

The vaunted Six-Party Talks, you know the multi-national approach that was going to rid the world of the North Korean nuclear menace, have all but collapsed and Pyongyang is becoming ever more vague as to how or when they will actually adhere to their original cooperation.

President Bush should have known that this cooperation would not last. The other members of the talks (China, South Korea, Japan and China) were not as eager as we were to rid the North Koreans of this weaponry and it showed as none of them seriously pressed the issue with Kim Jong Il.

Additionally, President Bush should have known better than to treat the North Koreans with the respect that rational governments demand. The war-mongering North should not have been trusted, simple as that.

While, I do not necessarily abdicate going to war with North Korea, I do think that tougher actions should have been taken.

Further economic sanctions or air strikes to take out nuclear installations would have been better approaches than diplomacy with a bunch of disinterested parties.

As a result, President failed at one of his largest foreign policy goals: ridding North Korea of nuclear weapons.

Good luck with that one Barack!

Iran

Here's another hot potato President Bush will pass along to President-elect Obama.

To me, this is President Bush’s grandest foreign policy failure.

Again and again, I have repeated how disastrous a nuclear Iran would be, so I’m not going to rehash all of those old arguments.

I just find it incomprehensible that he did not do anything to stop Iran’s nuclear aspirations. I know that he was sabotaged by his own National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) in December of 2007, but with a successful Iraq critical to not only the rest of the Middle East and world, but to his own legacy as well, he still should have acted to relieve the region of such a source of instability and danger.

He could have done something…anything else than what he did, err...didn't do.

Again, calculated air strikes, a proxy war fought through Israel (a nation who’s arm no one has to twist when their safety is challenged) and draconian economic sanctions could have worked...at least they should have been tried.

Instead, of actually doing something about it, all he offered was words. Words, that again, fell on deaf ears.

Hopefully, Iran won’t develop the bomb. Hopefully, the Ahmadinejad regime will collapse. Hopefully, it won’t be replaced by an even more fanatic leader. Hopefully, President-elect Obama will be able to find a resolution.

That’s an awful lot to hope for though.

One last hope that I have is that years from now historians won’t look back at 2008 the same way they look back to the early 30’s and wonder why nothing was done to stop such a despotic, evil regime from wreaking havoc all over the world.

If they do, the first finger of blame will, and should, be pointed directly at President Bush.

That’s all for now folks. Until next time, take care and be well.

-John