Kevin Sullivan

Bush Doctrine (2001-2007)

Posted by Kevin Sullivan under Uncategorized

From Jeff Jacoby at the Boston Globe:

“The United States will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Bush said in his landmark June 2002 speech on the Israeli-Arab conflict, “until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure.” He reinforced that condition two years later, confirming in a letter to Ariel Sharon that “the Palestinian leadership must act decisively against terror, including sustained, targeted, and effective operations to stop terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure.”

Now that policy has gone by the boards, replaced by one less focused on achieving peace than on maintaining a “peace process.” No doubt it is difficult, as Rice says, to “move forward on the peace process” when the Palestinian Authority glorifies suicide bombers and encourages a murderous goal of eliminating the Jewish state. If the Bush Doctrine – “with us or with the terrorists” – were still in force, the peace process would be shelved. The administration would be treating the Palestinians as pariahs, allowing them no assistance of any kind, much less movement toward statehood, so long as their encouragement of terrorism persisted.

But it is the Bush Doctrine that has been shelved. In its hunger for Arab support against Iran – and perhaps in a quest for a historic “legacy” – the administration has dropped “with us or with the terrorists.” It is hellbent instead on bestowing statehood upon a regime that stands unequivocally with the terrorists. “Frankly, it’s time for the establishment of a Palestinian state,” Rice says.

I have been thinking about the failing Bush Doctrine a lot these days.  The spoon-fed peace “process” that we’re witnessing in the Middle East is certainly the death knell, but there have been other signs.  Our strategic relationships with countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have always placed an asterisk upon the policy.  We can also look to the 2008 presidential contenders and see that the doctrine never really stuck.  Republican candidates like Giuliani and Thompson are fans of the hard power angle, as is Barack Obama, apparently (see his Pakistan flap).  But the Right has made “Radical Islam” the villain in this narrative, while the Left has turned America’s presence in Iraq into their rally cry.

It’s too bad, because the Bush Doctrine is sound policy in theory.  Target the states that finance terrorist activity, pressure them, isolate them, and if need be, remove them (presumably as the very last resort).  But nobody wants to follow this, it seems.  Talk of “global caliphates” tends to make me cringe, as do the flip arguments on America’s “imperial footprint.”  Neither are based on very feasible policy, and instead create ambiguity in American foreign policy.