anything he wants to.
Assuming that the Democrats take control of at least one house of congress in
November, will we see any changes in our policy in Iraq? To pull out our forces
and leave Iraq to its fate after we made the mess there would be crass, as well
as dangerous. Extremists would undoubtedly rise to power, but I’m afraid that
might be inevitable anyway. However, I think Bush & Co. might be forced to
accept some sort of timetable to draw down our forces and let Iraq take
responsibility for its own security. If they’re still unable to put together a reliable
security force then time probably isn’t the problem. The current Iraqi
government is probably doomed to fail and there’s not much we can do about it
except use our military to prop up our puppet regime, sort of the way the Soviet
Union propped up its communist clients before glasnost. The only way we’re
going to make Iraq into a western-style democracy is if we clear out all of the
Iraqis and declare it the fifty-first state.
The main problem with U.S. foreign policy is that we’ve never really had one. It
changes from region to region, country to country and situation to situation with
the whims of the current administration. During the cold war it was a little more
simple: if you wanted to enjoy U.S. support the only requirement was that you
not be communist. But those who think that our mission was to spread liberty
and freedom throughout the globe are mistaken. We didn’t really want our
second and third-world allies to be truly democratic with such luxuries as
freedom of speech and civil liberties. If they were we would have to worry every
time an election rolled around that the new government might not be so pro-
American.
So what should our foreign policy do? First of all, military force should only be
used to defend ourselves or others from an imminent and clear threat. The
invasion of Afghanistan was definitely justified, the invasion of Iraq definitely
was not.
Overall, we should be trying to gently prod other nations to respect the human
rights of their citizens, rather than our current policy of only worrying about
whether the other nation‘s government supports our government‘s objectives.
Much more important than the other country’s form of government is that it
doesn’t use torture and murder to keep its hold on power.
Nations that want to trade with us should be not-so-gently encouraged to
guarantee that its workers receive a fair wage and a safe working environment.
For example, China probably shouldn’t be receiving “most favored trade
partner” status. Our goal should be to see all nations of the world enjoy a
standard of living similar to ours. When these global worker’s buying power
grows, the world’s economy grows. Unlike what the Republicans profess,
economies are driven by consumers, not by investors. Then we might not need
a big fence around the country to keep out people who want to escape the
impoverishment of their own homeland.
Of course, we can’t be responsible for the well-being of all the peoples of the
world, nor should we even try to be. What we can do is at least not be part of
the problem.
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