U.S. foreign policy on hot streak

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USA Today
By Bill Nichols

For months, as casualties mounted in the postwar U.S. occupation of Iraq, critics of the Bush administration's foreign policy portrayed it as a divisive doctrine in which the United States blundered about the world, often with messy results.

But in the past six weeks, things have been going President Bush's way. From Iran to North Korea, from Libya to the surprising new consensus on writing off much of Iraq's $150 billion foreign debt, the administration has either achieved or appears on the verge of significant foreign policy successes - and that doesn't include the capture Dec. 13 of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

Many of the developments are tentative and still might not produce lasting results. And some of the breakthroughs may not be the direct result of U.S. actions. But as the year begins, the administration appears to be seeing signs of peace and cooperation in places where that seemed unlikely six months ago. Bush also may see an added public relations boost as he heads into an election year in which, as the economy improves and possibly fades as an issue, foreign policy and national security could emerge as decisive.

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What smeg is this? It can only come from the Bizarro world.

OK. First, the U.S. has no deal with Libya, and is renewing sanctions against it. In Iraq, the U.S. military war dead has topped 500, and Iraqis are rioting the streets. Saddam Hussein's capture is irrelevent. The Arab-Israeli conflict is in full swing.

And in Bush'w world only the mere appearance of negotiations with North Korea can be seen as a huge foreign policy victory.

"'There is some truth to the idea that Bush's belligerent policies are having some success,' says Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington."

Libertarian, my ass! How can a libertarian justify invading other countries?

"Several foreign policy analysts from across the political spectrum also acknowledge that Bush's diplomatic efforts were never as bad as
political opponents insisted." No, they're worse. And indpendent analyst say it, even the Army War College, not just "policial opponents". Whore.

And O'Hanlon from Brookings can kiss my "liberal" ass. "'If you add it all up, it's been a good six to eight weeks,' says Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning think tank. 'But the administration was never as bad as some people wanted to say they were, just as they aren't as good now.'" OK, so CATO is libertarian but Brookings leftist. Shame!

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