I disagree that U.S. foreign policy is subject to the demands of the electorate.
Rather, foreign policy is determined by the government according to the best interests of the U.S. as a state entity, and then spun and media’fied so that the majority of the electorate will support it.
I think the difference is important.
I also do not think that the Bush administration is nearly as concerned about opinion polls as previous administrations were, especially when it comes to foreign policy.
Finally, Cheney is not on a leash. He’s a part of the governmental decision-making group that determines what is the best course of action for America’s long-term strength, vitality, dominance, and survival.
Any assertions that Cheney is being kept on a leash are just rhetoric. Do you have any substantive cites to back your assertion that Cheney is “kept on a leash” by Bush, lest he wage war on other countries?
You should drop that particular pretense. You’re not going to find any “evidence”, at least nothing solid. Hell, you could look back six weeks ago and still see Bush claiming there was no desire to invade Iraq. And in at least some sense, I think he was honest about this, though unintentionally self-deceptive in that he had already painted us into the corner of war, so to speak. He didn’t want war (few people do, even among “hawks”), but he wanted to compromise even less. Which clearly means he did want war instead of compromise. Such are the vagaries of political speech.
I don’t really think there’s a “shopping list” of countries to specifically go to war with, though there certainly is the “Axis of Evil” (perhaps New and Improved with an extra Syria in every box), which might reasonably indicate where our foreign policy attention will be drawn to next. That does not necessarily mean we will go to war with any of them, nor does it mean there is an active desire to. But there is definitely a non-zero probability that another conflict may erupt within the next 18 months, and it may indeed be due largely to the seemingly confrontational nature of the current Administration combined with the undeniable hostility of the foreign governments in question.
Yeah, I vote for Syria too. If only to scare the fear of Allah back into them. However, if France opens its yap about Syria, I wouldnt be too adverse to the idea of a few JDAMs dropped on Chiracs backyard.
Already, I am hearing the same things that I was hearing a year ago about Iraq. They are part of the “axis of evil”. A couple weeks ago we released some sattalite photos of a suspected nuclear facility. They are being accused of seeked WMDs and of breaking UN treaties. There is no doubt in my mind that we are subtly laying the groundwork for an invasion
Bush has said many times that this war will not be over quickly. He has said many times that it will not be easy. And I believe him. He said he intends to “rid the world of evil”, and thats gonna mean taking down a lot more countries than just Iraq. We no longer respect sovereignty. We have stated that we are seeking to “rid the world of evil”, not to make peace. There is nothing that indicates the Iraq will be the end of it, and everything to indicate that it is not.
mrblue92 I have no illusions about the current US administration, or the slap dash way it tried to justify the removal of Saddam with just about every conceivable reason it could come up with aside from the true strategic ones (which I’m guessing at above).
My contention is that if you’re going to start waving you arms about wildly about imminent invasions you should have something other than “I gotta feeling about this” or an article in which the reporter biases the piece with
in the first paragraphs and buries the pentagon position (not by force) ½ to ¾ of the way down.
Iraq was a neo-conservative hot button issue for years and those very people made it into power. It was never hard to see that once they were able to steel the public to Saddam removal they would try it. Hell, I’d bet they never thought they’d get a chance.
So no, I don’t expect to see a White House memo with orders to visit Damascus. At the same time, unless we have something a little more substantial lets not assume its going to happen anyway.
Grey, Iraq was only at the top of the New American Century / Likudnik neocon list; it certainly wasn’t the whole list. One also cannot dismiss the other hints we’ve been getting lately. We do know what niceties like “I hope we could change the regimes without military force” means, too.
Well, I agree in that we should not assume any particular invasion/liberation/war is “imminent”, but on the other hand, I don’t think it’s entirely out of place to speculate on potential scenarios if one felt the inclination. It is those inclinations which one would assume the OP was asking for, rather than evidence as you seemed to suggest. Perhaps I misinterpreted.
As a matter of fact, you’re probably correct that the 18 month time frame is a bit short. In order for a full-blown conflict to start in that amount of time, one expects there would likely have to be some as yet unforeseen politically triggering incident, possibly in North Korea, but most probably in Iraq or somehow involving Iraq (such as Syrian or even Iranian involvement).
Eh. I still think we should go kick Stalin’s corpse a few times.
