Atrios notes that this article in the American Prospect by John Judis represents a breakthrough of sorts-a recognition by a beltway media type that Bush’s foreign policy is essentially imperialistic. It’s well worth a read, since it summarizes well the arguments for that characterization and the reasons why imperialism is a failed strategy in foreign relations in this day and age. It does not, unfortunately, deal with the damage imperialism does to republicanism. The two are essentially incompatible. Ask any ancient Roman or Athenian.
While the article is worth reading it has its flaws. This brought me up short:
When George W. Bush took office in January 2001, however, his foreign policy echoed not only that of neo-isolationist Republicans like former Majority Leader Dick Armey, but also that of America’s foreign policy before we decided in 1898 that we had to get involved in the struggle for empire. That was an America that not only scorned empire but was oblivious to much of the outside world. Bush disdained international organizations. He withdrew the United States from the Kyoto climate treaty and whatever other international agreements had yet to be ratified. He was a unilateralist, but he was reluctant to use America’s singular power to affect the governments of other countries. His highest defense priority was the erection of an anti-missile system, the purpose of which was not only to make the United States impregnable from foreign attack, but also to reduce the reliance of the U.S. on other countries for its security.
All that changed after September 11. Bush retained his unilateralism, but he now wedded it to an aggressive strategy for dealing with America’s enemies.
In developing a response to September 11, Bush fell under the influence of neo-conservatives in his administration and in Washington policy circles. These neo-conservatives believed that the United States should use its superior military power to intimidate and overthrow the regimes of “rogue states” like Iraq that challenged American hegemony. (One typical slogan was “rogue state rollback.”) The neocons didn’t favor colonialism, but believed that by exerting its power the United States could produce regimes that did its bidding. After September 11, they spoke openly of creating a new American empire. “People are now coming out of the closet on the word ‘empire,'” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer exulted.
This comes dangerously close to believing what Bush said, rather than what he did. None of the actions described in the first paragraph is incompatible with imperial ambitions. Why, for instance, participate in international treaties when you would prefer to impose your own solution (or non-solution, in the case of climate change). The idea that Bush lacked imperial ambitions prior to 9/11 rests on a few faulty premises. First, that the Bush who campaigned as a person who favored dealing with other nations with a proper amount of “humility” (Remember that? It seems incredible, doesn’t it.) was telling the truth about his intentions, and that his actions in the few months prior to 9/11 were illustrative of his ultimate objectives. (When I refer to Bush in this article I mean the Bush organization, not merely the sometime puppet we have all grown to loathe).
The first premise fails because it ignores the first law of Bush. Whenever Bush says anything that sounds the least bit responsible, he is lying. This is almost a law of nature. More importantly, though, Judis ignores the fact that Dick Cheney, the biggest, meanest neo-con of them all was pulling Bush’s strings from the very start, and that from day one, long before Osama handed him the rope he would hang himself with, Bush was determined to attack Iraq. We know this from Paul O’Neil and others. His objectives were imperialistic from the start, he simply did not yet have the political capital to implement them. 9/11 didn’t change Bush, it liberated him.
