Foreign Policy At Work

Fire of Liberty
Andrew Ferguson has a good column over at Bloomberg.com that points out that while various foreign policy experts from the realist and idealist camps seem to be fighting with each other in the press and various functions about how President Bush is doing this or that thing wrong they seem to forget that the White House and the folks responsible for forging our foreign policy have been pretty busy. I'd say that after reading the following by Ferguson, we're in much greater shape than the experts that second guess the White House's efforts to secure this nation from outside threats like al Qaeda:

When those weapons weren't found, says Fukuyama, Bush switched his rationale to idealism -- the advance of democracy in the Middle East.

But anyone with a memory -- one unclouded by silly debates among intellectuals -- will know that Bush's rationale for the war was multi-pronged from the beginning.

Even New York Times editorial writers once knew this. ``President Bush sketched an expansive vision (in a speech) last night of what he expects to accomplish by a war in Iraq,'' said the Times in an editorial Feb. 27, 2003, on the eve of war. ``Instead of focusing on eliminating weapons of mass destruction ... Mr. Bush talked about establishing a `free and peaceful Iraq' that would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example' to the entire Arab and Muslim world.''

The document released last week, after three years of false critiques, tries once more to make Bush's case clear.

``Because free nations tend toward peace,'' it says, ``the advance of liberty will make America more secure.''

Even those who considered the Iraq invasion a bad idea on prudential grounds can appreciate Bush's attempt to transcend the false categories of foreign-policy intellectuals. He hopes to advance democracy in Iraq and elsewhere because it is the best way to fulfill what he calls his most solemn obligation: ``to protect the security of the American people.''

The idea is easy enough to understand. Only an intellectual could be confused by it.

I'd say that I tend to agree to with Ferguson on this one.