Is this insight into Bush's foreign policy?

[LilShieste]

@pervert

This is just a nitpick, but I think it is closer to say that Bush is talking about Summits. Specifically he is referencing Kerry’s assertion that calling for a summit soon after Kerry becomes president would have any effect on the course of the war in Iraq.
Just a little googling later, I found this site. It is a collection of the Security council resolutions passed in 2001.

I agree, pervert, that the distinction should probably be made that Bush was talking about Summits, and not just “meetings with other countries”. (Technically, in my head, they’re probably the same… but AFAIK there probably are some differences.)

Also, thanks for the info on the 2001 Security council resolutions.

@Voyager

I believe that there were both UN resolutions and virtual summits, conducted by Bush I and Colin Powell, before Gulf War I. While the tyrant was not overthrown then, (and we did not get into a quagmire then either) he could have been. The diplomacy before Gulf War I is a splendid example of how it should be done.

Exactly.

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Is he suggesting that the meetings themselves don’t depose tyrants? Is he saying the equivalent of an shopping center architect saying, “I’ve never seen a blueprint that could hold 100 stores”? If so, he’s both right and an idiot: it’s the results of the summit, not the summit itself, that can be effective.

This is one of the main problems I had with Bush’s statement. As was pointed out in the beginning of this thread, it really seems like nothing more than a strawman. If it’s not a strawman, then it really is a terribly stupid statement.

@rjung

I just find it amusing that Bush tosses out a quote like this while his handlers are dinging Kerry for being “disrespectful” to our allies.

And yet, people still wonder why it’s possible for Kerry to repair our broken alliances, but not Bush. :rolleyes:

@Spavined Gelding

Just how much of this is genuine inflexibility and how much is posturing for the benefit of the electorate is hard to tell. There is, after all, more than one way to skin a cat. Our President seems to have taken the public position that the only way to do it is to stand on its head and pull on its tail and any suggestion that some other method might work better shows a lack of commitment to the objective. The President says that if you do not accept the head-tail approach to cat skinning you are not really interested in skinning the cat and thus sending the cat an inconsistent message. It is a little silly isn’t it?

Yes, it’s very silly, and arrogant. And it’s precisely the problem I have with Bush’s foreign policy. He has a very limited view of the options available to us, during the types of events we (and the rest of the world) have experienced in the last several years. I re-iterate my first sentence: it’s very silly, and arrogant.

LilShieste