Sunday, October 26, 2003

Remaking the World: Bush and the Neoconservatives

Remaking the World: Bush and the Neoconservatives
America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Ivo H. Daalder, James M. Lindsay. Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2003, 238 $22.95

Days before the United States launched Operation Iraqi Freedom this past March, a well-known intellectual close to the White House walked me through the necessity and promise of the coming invasion. Whatever rancor it caused in the short term, he said, would pale in comparison to the payoff that would follow. In the months and years to come, Iraqis who had suffered under Saddam Hussein's tyranny would write books and testify to the brutality of the regime, the bankruptcy of the Arab nationalism that stood idly by while they suffered, and the improvement of their lives. That testimony and the reality of an Iraqi state where basic human rights were respected would shatter the anti-Americanism that fills the Muslim Middle East and start a wave of change that would sweep over the region.

A terrific overview of the Bush ideology, taken from a review published in Foreign Affairs and reprinted in the New York Times. There is no doubt that our foreign policy reflects GWB's vision, and his unwavering course. History will tell if his course is more like that of Churchill or more like that of the captain of the Titanic.

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