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:: MAX BLACK ::

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." --C.S. Lewis

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:: Friday, October 15, 2004 ::

Kerry's Credulous Foreign Policy Intentions

Dan Drezner's 'P Value' had him drifting toward Kerry--until he received this severe response from "a former US diplomat who served in both the Clinton and Bush administrations":

"I don't dispute some of Kerry's criticisms of the current Administration's conduct of foreign policy. But KE04 presents no actual solutions on foreign policy from which we can derive a reasonable belief that his performance would be better than the current White House. In fact, it just might be worse.

Many of Kerry's policy proposals on foreign affairs strike me as nastily disingenuous. His "fair trade" mantra raises the specter of protectionism at a time when America's continued global economic engagement remains a lynchpin of the "soft power" Kerry so ardently wishes to use as leverage in the war on terror. His fulminations on a lack of allies in Iraq don't pass the red face test -- French, German and Russian interests are now clearly arrayed in a classic balance of power position against the U.S. This will not change with Kerry in the White House. As for other allies (minus the UK and Australia), we're the victims of our Cold War success - most participants in Iraq are already projecting about as much power as they possibly can, having comfortably atrophied under our security umbrella for the past 60 years. This is the burden of hegemony, and I'm not quite sure Senator Kerry, whose mind still fully inhabits the Vietnam paradigm, is up to the task of bearing it forthrightly.

Kerry's respect for multilateralism should not be praised, but questioned, given the changing nature of international politics today. The days of America being able to win a kitchen pass from UN members on any number of issues have come to pass. The Cold War is over, and as your U of C colleague Mr. Mearshemier warned back in 1990, multipolarity will make us outright miss the Cold War. But Kerry hasn't grasped this fundamental change. He hasn't comprehended that the UN, as well as other multilateral institutions, has stopped being a preserve of internationally agreed rules and collective action backed by broad consensus. These institutions have become, instead, vehicles for the pursuit of narrow self-interests by any number of major regional powers which aspire to great power status. (France, Russia, Germany, India, Brazil, China). This is a drastically different international order from the one Kerry presumes to know.

You also have to ask yourself, who is going to carry out Kerry's multilateral approach? And on that score, things simply get worse. A Kerry White House would mean the Madeleine Albright B Team moving into senior foreign policy positions. And, with the notable exception of Richard Holbrooke (his hair may be on fire, but he gets things done), this would be disastrous. These are the same folks who fiddled for 8 years on counter terror, negotiated a terrifyingly naive nuke deal with North Korea, and generally treat foreign policy as a rhetorical exercise. This is a team who has demonstrated, in past position of influence, an alarming propensity to get rolled by their foreign counterparts. Let's pick just two: Susan Rice? Jamie Rubin?! Are you serious?? During her sojourn as assistant secretary for Africa in Albright's State Department, Rice had to be consistently bailed out of trouble by career diplomats. As for Rubin, he is anti-gravitas. He's Edwards-lite.

Think about Kerry's foreign policy track record and his much ballyhooed commitment to "multilateralism". Think if that reflects accurately the state of world politics today. Think about the people who would occupy senior Cabinet, NSC, State and DoD positions under Kerry. Then think about your vote again, please.

It's a good bet that if Kerry's elected we're going to see the Clinton foreign policy team resurrected with all of the trappings, including Yasser Arafat chilling his heels in the Rose Garden--look for a Jimmy Carter 'special-appointment' to the UN 'Security Council'.

(Imagine all the people...)

Hat Tip to The Corner's Rod Dreher [>]

:: Max 2:49 PM [+] ::
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