Your Thoughts Exactly

I’m here to talk foreign policy. George W Bush has surrounded himself with neo-conservative advisors, with Cheney, Rice and Wolfowitz the three biggest names. Neo-Conservatives generally believe that international politics is a zero-sum game: that there are enemies out there attempting to take our power, and that, necessarily, if their power increases our power wanes. They have stolen one idea from traditional liberalism, that spreading Democracy will neccesairly cause peace, because liberal democracies don’t fight wars against each other: thus their attempts to create democratic governments around the world, even if by force. Neo-cons also have a strong mistrust in the power of international institutions: hence the circumnavigation of the United Nations in fighting the Iraq War.

The problem with ascribing to ANY ideology when it comes to international politics is that by viewing the world as acting in a certain way, you invariably push the world into following the rules and guidelines you set up, especially when you are in the position of the United States as the most powerful actor on the international scene. For example, if the Bush administration believes international institutions are weak, and then avoids using them, they weaken the international institution. Get it? The problem is, international institutions have proven helpful in the past and could prove helpful in the future: there may be a time when we want a strong UN, such as…I don’t know, sharing the burden of rebuilding a war ravaged Iraq.

International diplomacy, like most issues, is too complicated to be viewed through one paradigm. Yet since Vietnam, there has been a tradition of leaving war management decisions in the hands of the executive branch. Some of this comes from tradition, and some comes from the patriotic fervor that often surrounds decisions to go to war. No one wants to be accused of not supporting our troops, or supporting our country. But isn’t the best way to support our troops is to keep them alive at all costs?

The founders of the Constitution left much of international diplomacy in the hands of the executive branch, but they left important methods of control in the hands of Congress: from ratification of executive authority to control over funding. When I’m elected to Congress, I will spearhead a movement to engage in greater control over military planning and operations from the Congressional branch. Congress shouldn’t be reduced to handing out token approval and investigating errors after the fact. They should be involved in the entire process, so that the United States does not get pigeon-holed into the ideological paradigm of a few crusty academics. A foreign policy that considers various ideas and is not based on “true belief,” will serve us better.