John Feffer Editor, Foreign Policy in Focus Wednesday, August 13, 2003; 2:00 p.m ET
"Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralism and Global Strategy After September 11" is a comprehensive critique of the Bush administration's foreign policy and military strategies. "A concise dissection of the new U.S. unilateralism," the book takes a look at the role of the U.S. and global relations after Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq. It is a collection of essays from leading legal, geopolitical and cultural analysts and experts. What is the new military strategy of the Bush administration? What is the U.S. mission with the “Axis of Evil” targets in the war on terrorism? How much do military spending and U.S. operations cost the nation? Editor John Feffer, Foreign Policy In Focus advisory committee member at the Institute for Policy Studies, will be online Wednesday, Aug. 13 at 2 p.m. ET to discuss the book "Power Trip: U.S. Unilateralizm and Global Strategy After September 11." Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion. Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Potomac, Md.: Who do you think you are to be criticizing President Bush and his Administration during wartime? The nerve of you to undermine his leadership when he's slogging on the front lines, supporting our troops and wiping out Al-Qaeda's last state sponsor in Baghdad. Have you ever served in the U.S. Air Force? Have you ever landed a bomber onto an aircraft carrier? Have you ever worked on an oil well and learned the ins and outs of that industry? President Bush has all of these credentials. Why don't you join the nine dwarves while our President does the work of a "real man" day after day in the White House saving our country from demons both outside AND WITHIN our country!
John Feffer: Thank you for your comments. Democracy is about free speech, which also includes criticism. It is especially important to respect the principles of democracy during times of crisis, including war.
I'm surprised that you have so much faith in the expertise of our current president. Until he became president, George Bush was noted largely for owning a sports team. His military and political experience was both minimal and undistinguished.
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Harrisburg, Pa.: What is the latest news on achieving political and economic stability in Afghanistan? A short time ago, this was a priority and it seems to have since been a lesser concern. The press reports I have read indicate that American assistance has dropped and that Afghanistan appears to be in disarray. Is that so? How bad, or good, are things in Afghanistan? Are we delivering on our commitments to the people of Afghanistan? Is there something we should be doing different? (And I won't even ask about not finding Bin Laden.)
John Feffer: A good question. As you probably have read, the Taliban remains a political and military force in Afghanistan, the central government is weak, and U.S. aid has been minimal. George Bush promised early on that the U.S. government on his watch would not engage in nation-building. Alas, this seems to be the case -- the U.S. government has made promises to rebuild Afghanistan but has not delivered the goods. The reasons are many for this. The administration has certainly been distracted by the war in Iraq. We're also dealing with a large budget deficit that promises only to get larger. But perhaps the deeper issue, which Ahmed Rashid addresses in his chapter in Power Trip, is that the U.S. has fundamentally misinterpreted the politics of Central Asia. The administration is supporting strong-arm leaders in the region in order to stabilize U.S. influence there. But instead we're only strenghtening Islamic fundamentalism.
What can we do that's different? A very tough question. Certainly we should not promise nation-building without supplying the funds to make it work. Even critics on the right -- such as Niall Ferguson -- have criticized Washington for trying to maintain an empire on the cheap. But it's not only money. As in Iraq, we have to support indigenous political institutions that represent the various tendencies in Afghani society. And these institutions have to be independent rather than simply handmaidens of U.S. policy in the region.
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College Park, Md.: The biggest problem with unilateralism is that it encourages other nations to also at unilaterally. China now has absolute justification to 'pre-emptive self defense' against Taiwan, as does North Korea against the South, etc. Essentially, Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1991 can be retroactively justified.
What possible moral authority can the US now exercise in the event of illegal invasion of another country?
John Feffer: You make an excellent point -- indeed, a point that we discuss at length in Power Trip. This precedent-setting extends to our approach to nuclear weapons (the Nuclear Posture Review), multilateral treaties (backing away from the Kyoto Protocol, the ABM treaty, etc), and international institutions (unsigning the International Criminal Court. We will suffer the consequences of this approach for many years to come.
The cynical interpretation, of course, is that the Bush administration is perfectly happy about setting such precedents. They want to remake the international order so that U.S. military power backed by dubious claims to moral superiority -- rather than international law or international institutions -- determines the outcome of conflicts. The theorist William Wohlforth argues that a unipolar system can be stable if maintained by an assertive hegemon. But it is precisely because of such malign precedent-setting that the very fabric of the international order is unravelling and we will come ever closer to a Hobbesian scenario of the war of all against all.
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Lyme, Conn.:
We often get so involved in the details of policy that I think it helps it helps to step back sometimes and consider our more general philosophy of foreign policy. We are a nation which, at least to many foreigners, is a military power and which is respected or feared for our military capabilities. When we provide assistance, it is often in response to our economic interests and economic development is generally targeted to assisting foreign nations develop products and industries which are involved in international trade. The benefits often then indirectly help the country's residents as their economy strengthens.
While we do provide some direct humanitarian assistance, and our recent increased commitment to fighting AIDS in Africa is an example. Yet, humanitarian assistance is a relatively small portion of our foreign assistance.
My question: if we substantially changed our foreign assistance strategy and targeted it towards helping the economic welfare and health of people across the world, wouldn't we no only achieve more benefit to more people, yet, provide us with an image of humanitarian benefactors that makes the world more comfortable with the United States? This would benefit us in reducing some (although certainly not aoo) breeding grounds for future terrorists, reduce the fears of some nations that they must arm against us (and, thus, we reciprocate by arming against them). Further, with a more productive and healthier populace worldwide, we would have stronger markets for our goods and, with our image improved, American goods would receive warmer welcomes.
I know this is a general outlook, yet it seems to be one that has been ignored by the current administration. Do you have any comments on whether we could use greater humanitarian assistance to ease some long term international difficulties?
John Feffer: Your argument is a very compelling one and should, if we took seriously the rhetoric of the current administration, appeal to the "compassionate conservatism" of George Bush. As you rightly point out and as we discuss in the conclusion of Power Trip, the U.S. currently provides only a fraction of 1 percent of outlays to foreign assistance (even though according to a recent poll, Americans believe that we give away as much as 20 percent!).
In the wake of 9/11, Congress too concluded that an increase in foreign aid was vital in addressing the economic and political conditions that underpin the support of terrorism. But the current administration has largely ignored Congressional advice.
Much of U.S. foreign assistance is military. The large portion of non-military aid is tied to purchases of U.S. products and the opening of foreign markets to U.S. goods. In both cases, the U.S. government uses aid to reward allies that support U.S. foreign policy (e.g., supporting exemptions for U.S. soldiers from the jurisdiction of the ICC).
So I would support an increase in foreign assistance, but also a transformation of that assistance so that it better answers the basic needs of people around the world.
By the way, for a good summary of the hazards of U.S. development assistance, check out Betraying the National Interest by Francis Moore Lappe. Although the book came out in the 1980s, our foreign assistance programs still suffer from many of the same flaws that the book outlines.
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Wheaton, Md.: The worst national defence policy we could have is one that takes into accout what the rest of the world thinks. The rest of the world wasn't attacked on 9/11 and the rest of the world could care less if it happens again. A unilateral foreign policy is the only way to go.
John Feffer: The rest of the world has indeed been suffering attacks like 9/11. These attacks occured before 9/11 and are occuring today -- in Jakarta, Bali, the Middle East, and so forth. And the rest of the world cares deeply what happened on 9/11. We received the sympathy of most countries in the world, including some unlikely countries such as Sudan, Libya, and North Korea. Because of U.S. arrogance, however, the groundswell of support for the U.S. has dissipated since 9/11. The more unilateral our foreign policy, the more anger we will generate around the world. So you will find yourself with a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the U.S. government doesn't care about how others think, naturally they will not care what we think and act accordingly.
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Somerset, NJ: It seems clear that from the perspective of the Iraqi people, internationalizing the occupation would do a world of good, removing at least to some degree the motivation for electrical grid sabotage, for example, and giving the Iraqi people a better shot at moving on while still providing security. (It would be MUCH easier to make the case that it isn't simple US imperialism in action). So why isn't anyone holding the current administration's feet to the fire and making them respond to this fact?
John Feffer: I think the administration is eager at least on a superficial level to internationalize the occupation. It's paying for the Poles to come over, for example. But here's the conundrum for the administration: how can it internationalize the burdens of occupation and continue to obtain the lion's share of the benefits? U.S. companies are doing quite well with contracts. Bechtel will, for instance, net about $680 million (see a new report on this issue at http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/updates/081203.html
At the same time, the costs of occupation are enormous not only in terms of U.S. lives but also the nearly $4 billion a month we're spending.
A more challenging question is: how can the U.S. ask the world to help out after trashing multilateralism for the last two years? Fearing quagmire, do we pull out our troops and let the UN clean up (or fail to clean up) our mess and the legacy of Hussein's regime?
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New York, NY: (Something about Potomac's questions struck me as satirical.)
Al Gore's speech of last week took the Bush administration--and Bush himself--to task for piling on the lies to justify their actions in Iraq. The most egregious lie that the administration fostered and has done nothing about correcting is that Saddam had anything to do with either 9-11 or al Qaeda. These seem to be widely believed, according to most polls. Assuming you view dis/misinformation of this sort as harmful to democratic decision-making, how will it be possible to correct the misimpression? Do you agree with some Democrats that trying to correct it will only make the Democrats look weak on foreign policy?
John Feffer: There is, as you say, a tremendous disconnect between American beliefs and the reality on the ground in Iraq. According to a recent PIPA/Knowledge Networks poll, 41 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. has found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This isn't so much a function of dis/misinformation. I attribute it to wishful thinking. Americans would like to believe that their president doesn't lie and that U.S. foreign policy is conducted in a generally honest manner.
Democrats will look weak on foreign policy if they DON'T correct the mistatements of the Bush administration. They have to pose a credible but also distinctly bold alternative. As for strategy, I believe that there are two different approaches. The policymakers and presidential challengers should keep to the message: repeat the simple alternatives over and over again. The administration lied about WMD, about the connections between al-Qaeda and Hussein. Washington should put more money into reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq but the contracts should not only go to U.S. firms. And so on. For news analysts, on the other hand, we can be more nuanced in our corrections of the administration's misinformation.
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Austin, Tex.: How much of the problem is public relations? In other words, if, for example, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz didn't have such big mouths, and Bush could speak complete sentences in standard English and leave God out of it, could they have pursued basically the same policies without creating so much ill will?
Things like the ICC or the Kyoto treaty, for example. Though I don't like most of Bush's policies, I can see where a superpower with commitments all over the globe would (rightfully) be very leery of placing their soldiers at risk of prosecution in a world court. And if the Europeans weren't already so disgusted with Bush, maybe the Iraq debate at the UN would at least have been less rancorous.
Your thoughts?
John Feffer: Part of the power trip that the current administration is on involves speaking boldly and what might even seem at times to be overly aggressive. This is an extension of Nixon's mad man theory during the Vietnam War. The "enemy" has to be convinced that the administration in Washington is capable of extreme acts, including the first-use of nuclear weapons (as outlined in the Nuclear Posture Review). Such rhetoric also keeps allies in line. In theory. In reality, such rhetoric as you point out just pisses off everyone.
In terms of the ICC, the Clinton administration too was leery of placing U.S. soldiers at risk of prosecution -- so it worked long and hard to negotiate a protocol to that effect. The Bush administration wanted out of the ICC. Clinton-style negotiations were seen as appeasement.
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Kingstowne, Va.: Why do you and your ilk continue to cling to the fiction of the ABM treaty? As early as 1987, then-Soviet emperor Mikhail Gorbachev admitted that the Krasnyosk radar station in Siberia was a material breach of the ABM pact. If the Russians agreed it was null and void, why do American leftist extremists such as yourself continue to embrace it?
John Feffer: The reasoning behind the ABM treaty still holds true today. An arms race in both offensive and defensive weaponry is woefully expensive and strategically counterproductive. Arms control is about progressively restricting the production, sales, and deployment of weapons of mass destruction. Extending the arms race to space -- which we are doing by pushing forward with national missile defense -- makes no sense from either a scientific point of view (the system doesn't work) or a monetary point of view (we're wasting billions of dollars). Perhaps it is passe to believe in arms control. The alternative -- $400 billion defense budgets and greater proliferation of weaponry -- will soon bankrupt us and increase our insecurity.
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Alexandria, Va.: The Institute For Policy Studies has long been known as an apologist for countries hostile to the United States. Why do you always blame America first? Do you not realize that freedom isn't free?
John Feffer: Who said anything about blaming America first? Methinks that thou protest too much...
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Cumberland, Md.: YOu talk as if the US were the only country with a unilateralist Foreign Policy. Be honest for a change --- all the other P5 countries have a unilateralist foreign policy -- they just don't have the military power of the US. But that is no reason for us to surrender our rights to the beck and call of organizations like the UN who have demonstrated in Kosovo and Bosnia the impotence of its presence and policies. I see no reason to put US Foreign Policy interests and the safety of the American People at the whim of France or Kofi Ananan.
The UN is a failure and people need to admit it. As for Foreign Aid -- it may only be 1% but I think that is more than enough. More of an effort should be made to make these countries and regions solve their own problems -- Liberia is a good example. The US has no business even sending warships to the area -- the solutions is for the West Africans to figure out -- not to stand around and wait to be bailed out.
I am sorry but I think people like you who scream for multilateralism or really asking the US to surrender its policies to the whim of others without regard for its own citizens.
John Feffer: All countries pursue a mixture of unilateral and multilateral policies. The Bush administration, in my opinion, has put too great an emphasis on the unilateral. Multilateralism is not about putting the interests of the people of France above those of the United States, any more than good federal policy puts the interests of Connecticut over Florida. We're talking here about the common interest. Since we live in a global age, we have global common interests -- the environment, trade, and so on.
In other words, good multilateral treaties and institutions are in the interests of American citizens. We benefit if global CO2 is reduced. We benefit if the world collectively responds to terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
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Princeton. NJ:
I find it rather funny that one of your questioner refers to Bush as a real man, while deriding the democrats as dwarfs. John Kerry is a veteran with a very heroic record, far more of a real man than draft-dodger Bush.
John Feffer: couldn't say it better myself.
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Greenbelt, Md.: Regarding your first poster- do you think Bush cares that people disagree with him? Everyone rants that we shouldn't speak against a prez in war time. Why? Will he stop leading and curl up in the Oval Office and cry becouse I say he's a moron?
On the serious side- do you think speaking out against Bush's policies has an effect on him? I haven't seen it.
John Feffer: At the height of his popularity, Bush could safely ignore public opinion. But now that his support is declining, particularly around the war in Iraq and in terms of the domestic economy, speaking out against Bush policies becomes ever more important. We're coming up on an election. If Bush himself doesn't care about public opinion, his advisors sure do. For instance, I bet they're looking at the phenomenon of Moveon.org very, very carefully.
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Kensington, Md.: One of the most astonishing (and almost completely undiscussed) developments in international relations in the past couple years has been the total turnaround of worldwide attitudes toward the US. In a period of about a year and a half, we went from almost universal sympathy, solicitous helpfulness and solidarity from the world, to the "nation which is the biggest threat to worldwide peace", according to one poll.
It amazes me that this diametric turnaround, accomplished in so little time by our government, would be worth commenting on. Yet domestic voices have been completely mute on this subject. I realize it is embarrassing, but shouldn't we acknowledge it to ourselves?
John Feffer: Yep -- that's been a remarkable shift and one we discuss in the Response chapter of Power Trip. We squandered an amazing political opportunity to construct a genuinely multilateral response to terrorism. We tore apart trans-Atlantic relations. We've put an enormous strain on relations with South Korea. Chalmers Johnson dissected the consequences of such arrogant foreign policy in his book Blowback.
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Austin, Tex.: What, in your opinion, will it take to get us back onto a more reasonable track? Bush is likely to win in 2004. If Tony Blair loses his job and Bush loses one of his few internation allies, will that make the administration stop and think? When somebody seriously starts making noises about reintroduction of the draft (not just as a political move as Rangel did), will that help remind people of the costs of these policies? Or is this just going to go on for the next 30 years until the EU or China or somebody can stand up to the US economically and militarily?
John Feffer: I'm not ready to concede the next election to Bush. He is very vulnerable on domestic issues. His negatives -- according to today's WPost -- are as high as his Daddy's in 1991. And as the war in Iraq drags on -- though the administration claims the war is over -- his popularity index will continue to fall.
If he does win, though, expect more of the same if not worse. Some of the moderates like Colin Powell -- who hasn't been very moderate of late -- will leave the administration and the hardliners will have freer rein.
And we won't have to wait 30 years for another country or region to challenge us. Europe is looking to develop an independent military force to complement its economic power. Japan, too, is abandoning its peace constitution, building its first aircraft carriers since WWII, developing in-air flight refueling (so it can conducting bombing runs), and even discussing, sotto voce, a possible nuclear weapons program. And although imperial overstretch appears to be no longer in vogue, we simply won't be able to sustain $400 billion arms budgets, be the world's policeman, and maintain a worldclass economy. We'll get weaker, they'll get stronger, and U.S. unilateralism will go the way of all empires past.
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Annandale, Va.: Can you tell us more about the different chapters in the book?
John Feffer: We have an introduction by Barbara Ehrenreich, followed by an analysis of the roots of the Bush administration's foreign policy. Tom Barry and Jim Lobe analyze the backgrounds of the central figures of the administration (Wolfowitz, Feith) and the outlines of the radical shift in perspective in Washington. Then we cover in more depth the key issues: resources (Michael Klare), the military (Bill Hartung), intelligence (Mel Goodman), international law (Michael Ratner and Jules Lobel), culture (Noy Thrupkaew), and the economy (Mark Weisbrot). Then we look at U.S. policy in the different regions of the world -- Central Asia (Ahmed Rashid), Middle East (Stephen Zunes), Africa (Martha Honey), Latin America (Coletta Youngers), and Asia (John Gershman). Finally we look at the international response to U.S. foreign policy (me, and outline some alternatives (me and Miriam Pemberton), and conclude with Susan Hirsch, who lost her husband in the embassy bombing in Tanzania. You can read an excerpt of the last chapter at www.ips.org and there might be some other excerpts at www.fpif.org
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Washington, DC: Why is it that lefties who were so willing to let the UN inspectors look for WMDs for YEARS are unwilling to let the U.S. military look for mere weeks? It wouldn't be because you're reflexively anti-American, would it?
John Feffer: Why do you assume that criticism of U.S. policy constitutes anti-Americanism? Does that mean that any member of Congress that raises questions about U.S. policy is anti-American? Patriotism should not be blind.
UN inspectors had limited access, or so the Bush administration would have had us believe. U.S. forces can go anywhere they please and still haven't found anything.
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New York, N.Y.: In response to the questioner who claimed that "Bush had served on the Air Force", he never served on the Air Force, just in the Air National Guard and was AWOL for a year. And FWIW, Bush never landed a plane on a carrier either incidentally. I personally think Bush's lack of experience with foreign countries led him to drastically understimate the effort involved in rebuilding Iraq. Your thoughts ?
John Feffer: Bush was the most inexperienced president yet in terms of foreign experience and travel. This perspective certainly shaped his early comments about conducting a more modest foreign policy. Yes, the administration underestimated the efforts to rebuild Iraq, as they have underestimated the challenge of rebuilding Afghanistan. I'm not sure whether this is a lack of experience or a fundamental disdain for the project.
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Cumberland, Md.: Wouldn't you say that what we are seeing now is the "blowback"from the Clinton Foreign Polciy? 1. We are mired in the Balkans due to his rash actions, 2. N. Korea is out control thanks to his negotiations and refusal to bomb when he had the chance 3. His foriegn policy operated from a position of weakness and postponing and real confrontation of the problem.
Are you proposing the US should contain to avoid reality as Clinton did?
John Feffer: Last time I looked, the war in the Balkans is over. There are still a lot of problems there, but nothing like the 1990s. The 1994 Agreed Framework kept the peace in East Asia for nearly a decade. Its failure owes as much to conservative opposition in Congress as to either Clinton or Pyongyang (see my new book: North Korea, South Korea: U.S. Policy at a Time of Crisis).
In Power Trip, I spend some time critiquing the failures of the Clinton administration. But he certainly confronted real problems and came up with real solutions, however flawed they might have been.
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Washington, DC: You keep mentioning the Kyoto protocol and carbon dioxide. Last time I checked, C02 was something we all exhaled every time we breathed. Carbon dioxide is vital to plant life and the photosynthesis process. Your insistence on limiting the production of C02 (98 percent of which is naturally occurring in the atmosphere) leads one to believe you are more interested in crippling the economy of developing countries than anything else. Why?
John Feffer: Developing countries are certainly concerned that the limits proposed by the Kyoto Protocol will constrain their development. But the negotiators worked hard to come up with fair (i.e., equitable) levels. Developing countries are certainly right to protest that they shouldn't be expected to hamper their own development if large countries like the United States are not willing to make commensurate sacrifices.
Ys, we exhale CO2 and so do plants. But the global warming phenomenon is connected with the burning of fossil fuels, not with the hot air of humans.
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Cumberland, Md.: You seem to believe the Admin lied about WMD and AL Quaeda in Iraq. You have no evidence of that other than a desire it be so.
Let me point the following out to you -- the entire P5 believe Iraq had WMD prior to the war, even Blix thought so, the Clinton administration thought so, etc. -- also the fact that we have not found any does not mean that they do no have them. Absence of Evidence is not evidence of Absense.
As for Al Quaeda -- are you privy to Osama bin Laden's phone calls? Do you have any real evidence? There is the presense of Ansar al Islam, Sarquawi etc. and I think more will come out. After all we didn't know about Al Quaeda cells in the US until after 9/11 -- against the absence of proof to satisfy you is not evidence of absence.
John Feffer: You seem to ignore the fundamental rules of inquiry. It is the administration's responsibility to prove the existence of WMD and a connection to al-Qaeda, not the critics responsibility to prove the negative. We're still waiting for the evidence.
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Somerset, NJ: Followup. "A more challenging question is: how can the U.S. ask the world to help out after trashing multilateralism for the last two years? Fearing quagmire, do we pull out our troops and let the UN clean up (or fail to clean up) our mess and the legacy of Hussein's regime? "
Could this administration even do that? Since many of its internal domestic supporters are now DEEPLY sunk into Iraq, is there any way at all the administration can withdraw before the next election?
John Feffer: A premature withdrawal -- mirroring the Clinton retreat on Somalia -- would indeed be a PR disaster. But there are ways for the administration to internationalize the conflict in the same way that the Nixon administration sough to Vietnamize the Vietnam War. We will retreat, all the while claiming to "advance in a different direction."
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Somewhere, USA: Many people, including some in this chat, point to 9/11 as justification for a US-first, listen-to-nobody foreign policy.
What is going to happen if, god forbid, there is another big attack on US soil? (Which, I think most people acknowledge, is probably going to happen at some point.)
Bush & Co. are really going to go wild then, aren't they?
John Feffer: The war on terrorism, we've been told, has no time limit. Any future attacks on U.S. soil will be used to sustain this open-ended war.
When North Korea launched a rocket over Japan, the Japanese prime minister quipped that he should send a birthday present to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. After all, the launch cleared away any political opposition to the prime minister's attempts to build up the Japanese military and sign on to theater missile defense research.
In the same way, 9/11 was a political boon for the Bush administration. It cleared the way politically for a wide range of items on the hardliners' wish list: the $400 billion defense budget, support for eliminating Saddam and the Taliban, a new nuclear policy. Alas, a second 9/11 will have a similar political effect.
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To Wheaton, Md.: Wheaton, you state: "The worst national defence policy we could have is one that takes into accout what the rest of the world thinks." Is America the only country that should think and act on this advice? If not, how can you expect any other leader, including, for example, Saddam, to care about pressure from world organizations like the U.N. or other countries like the United States? It's pretty ridiculous to exempt America from considering world opinion while expecting other countries to bend to American will.
Reminds me of a quote: "No country should be allowed to possess weapons of mass destruction. If any country attempts to acquire them, we should nuke 'em!"
Please don't make the mistake of thinking that America should be exempt from the standards you apply to other countries. It's arrogant and foolish.
John Feffer: I second the motion.
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Columbia, Md.: What incidence(s) need to occur for public opinion to afford a more insular approach with Americanism (perhaps Globalism)?
John Feffer: Sorry -- I saved this one for last because I wasn't quite sure of the intent of the question. I'll interpret the question to be: what has to happen for the American public to support a more modest, perhaps even more isolationist foreign policy?
In general, I think the American public is very leery of a global cop role. We don't want to pay for it. We don't want the responsibility. The Bush administration has been very effective in painting existing multilateral institutions as ineffectual and that U.S. unilateralism is the only option. So, paradoxically, I believe that the only way that the U.S. can indulge its more isolationist tendencies (reducing military presence abroad, avoiding "entangling alliances") is by supporting more effective and democratic international institutions. We can tend our own garden only if the common space is in good hands. And we have that option -- to ensure that international mechanisms are fair, transparent, and robust. But that requires an entirely different foreign policy approach coming out of Washington.
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Alexandria, Virginia: Jeff, are you being serious when you assert that President Clinton provided real solutions to real problems re: North Korea?
Last time I checked, North Korean admitted in October of '02 to having run a secret uranium enrichment program in violation of the terms of its agreement with the United States which forbade NK from further developing nuclear weapons fuel.
What did the US Congress and American conservatives have to do with the North Korean secret uranium enrichment program? Are you asserting that American conservatives work in North Korean weapons development on the weekends or something?
Regards,
Todd C. Stromberg
John Feffer: The name is John, actually.
I don't have the time or the space to answer your question fully. But here's a quick rundown.
Under the Agreed Framework, the North Koreans expected:
1) light-water reactors by 2003
2) heavy fuel oil delivered on schedule
3) steps toward diplomatic recognition
4) lifting of all economic sanctions
By 2003, the reactors weren't even half done. The heavy fuel oil was not delivered on schedule. Sanctions were not completely lifted. Steps were not taken toward diplomatic recognition. Why? Check out the North Korea Advisory Group's report and you'll see how Congressional conservatives torpedoed the Agreed Framework because they believed it to be appeasement. After pissing off the North Koreans, they could then turn around and claim that Pyongyang wasn't abiding by the agreement.
In addition, the Bush administration labelled North Korea part of the "axis of evil" and explicitly targeted the country for the first use of nuclear weapons in the Nuclear Posture Review.
yes, North Korea is a pain in the ass to negotiate with. Yes, it will violate treaties. But in this case, it felt that:
1) the US had backed away from the Agreed Framework
2) the Bush administration was planning a preemptive strike in preparation for regime change.
The following "liberals" have concluded that Bush has dangerously ignored the North Korean problem: George Bush, Sr., Donald Gregg (Bush's ambassador to ROK), William Perry. Because of the current administration's policy, we are heading to war with North Korea.
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ny, ny: What evidence to we have that the Iraqis would like a U.N. presence in Iraq?
John Feffer: The evidence we have is: Iraqis want self-rule. No one wants to be a protectorate, whether administered by the US or the UN. Whether UN or US presence is more palatable will depend, of course, on the efficacy and fair-mindedness of the peacekeepers.
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Potomac, MD: How were you able to collect international opinion in your book? Where did you travel outside the country?
John Feffer: I've lived in England, Poland, Russia, and Japan. I've traveled extensively throughout Asia and Europe. So these experiences have informed my persepctive. Given the publishing deadlines for the book, though, I relied a great deal on primary and secondary sources rather than on travel.
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John Feffer:
Thanks for all the good questions and the challenging comments. If you want more detail on U.S. unilateralism, check out Power Trip at your local bookstore or you can order it by clicking on this link:http://www.irc-online.org/content/books/feffer.powertrip_body.html
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