Saturday, December 23, 2006

Did Clinton or Bush screw up foreign policy the most?

You decide.

From the 2000 Republican foreign policy platform
:

In the last eight years the administration has squandered the opportunity granted to the United States by the courage and sacrifice of previous generations:

  • The administration has run America’s defenses down over the decade through inadequate resources, promiscuous commitments, and the absence of a forward-looking military strategy.
  • The ballistic missile threat to the United States has been persistently dismissed, delaying for years the day when America will have the capability to defend itself against this growing danger.
  • The arrogance, inconsistency, and unreliability of the administration’s diplomacy have undermined American alliances, alienated friends, and emboldened our adversaries.
  • World trade talks in Seattle that the current administration had sponsored collapsed in spectacular failure. Authority to negotiate new fast-track trade agreements was slapped down by the administration’s own party in the Congress. An initiative to establish free trade throughout the Americas has stalled because of this lack of Presidential leadership.
  • The problems of Mexico have been ignored, as our indispensable neighbor to the south struggled with too little American help to deal with its formidable challenges.
  • The tide of democracy in Latin America has begun to ebb with a sharp rise in corruption and narco-trafficking.
  • A misguided policy toward China was exemplified by President Clinton’s trip to Beijing that produced an embarrassing presidential kowtow and a public insult to our longstanding ally, Japan.
  • With weak and wavering policies toward Russia, the administration has diverted its gaze from corruption at the top of the Russian government, the slaughter of thousands of innocent civilians in Chechnya, and the export of dangerous Russian technologies to Iran and elsewhere.
  • A chorus of empty threats destroyed America’s credibility in the Balkans, so that promised safe havens became killing fields.
  • The administration prolonged the war in Kosovo by publicly limiting America’s military options — something no Commander-in-Chief should ever do.
  • A generation of American efforts to slow proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has unraveled as first India and Pakistan set off their nuclear bombs, then Iraq defied the international community. Token air strikes against Iraq could not long mask the collapse of an inspection regime that had — until then — at least kept an ambitious, murderous tyrant from acquiring additional nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
  • A humanitarian intervention in Somalia was escalated thoughtlessly into nation-building at the cost of the lives of courageous Americans.
  • A military intervention in Haiti displayed administration indecision and incoherence and, after billions of dollars had been spent, accomplished nothing of lasting value

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