"'We must meet the dangers together,' Mr. Cheney said in his 30-minute speech to the gathering, the annual World Economic Forum. 'Cooperation among our governments, and effective international institutions, are even more important than they have been in the past.'
"Mr. Cheney continued, 'Working cooperatively against the dangers of a new era will place demands on us all, and there will be occasional differences, even among allies who have great respect for one another.'"
Whoa, the thin air in Switzerland must have affected Cheney's brain. But the cynical Dutch don't buy it. "'This overture comes during an election year,' said Carel N. Van Der Spek, a Dutch banker. 'The Bush administration wants to draw down its troops in Iraq, and to do that, it needs helps from Europe.'"
Damn you, Dutchman!
Along these lines, Robert Kagan writes today on the failure of the Bush administration to establish legitimacy with its dismissive attitude towards Europe -- and vice versa. Noting a fundamental change in the U.S. philosophy behind its foreign policy, Kagan notes the change in tone with the Bush administration's unabashed self-interest. "'We fight not just for ourselves but for all mankind,' Benjamin Franklin declared of the American Revolution, and whether or not that has always been true, most Americans have always wanted to believe that it is true."
The Bush adminstration has chosen unilateralism at the same time that European politicians have cynically used fear of American power to their own ends, creating a growing schism within the West, at a time when greater cooperation to fight multinational terrorism is needed.
"Americans therefore cannot ignore the unipolar predicament. Perhaps the singular failure of the Bush administration is that it has been too slow to recognize this. Mr. Bush and his advisers came to office guided by the narrow realism that dominated in Republican foreign policy circles during the Clinton years. The Clinton administration, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, wrote in a famous essay in January 2000, had failed to focus on the 'national interest' and instead had addressed itself to 'humanitarian interests' or the interests of 'the international community.' The Bush administration, by contrast, would take a fresh look at all treaties, obligations and alliances and re-evaluate them in terms of America's "national interest.'"
..."This is precisely what even America's closest friends fear: that the United States will wield its unprecedented vast power only for itself. In her essay, Ms. Rice derided "the belief that the United States is exercising power legitimately only when it is doing so on behalf of someone or something else." But for the rest of the world, what other source of legitimacy can there be? When the United States acts in its own interests, Ms. Rice claimed, as would many Americans, it necessarily serves the interests of everyone.
"'To be sure,' she argued, 'there is nothing wrong with doing something that benefits all humanity, but that is, in a sense, a second-order effect.'
"But could even America's closest friends ever be persuaded that an America always pursuing its self-interest could be relied upon to serve their interests, too, as some kind of 'second-order effect'?
"Both the unipolar predicament and the American character require a much more expansive definition of American interests. The United States can neither appear to be acting only in its self-interest, nor can it in fact act as if its own national interest were all that mattered. Even at times of dire emergency, and perhaps especially at those times, the world's sole superpower needs to demonstrate that it wields its great power on behalf of its principles and all who share them.
"The manner in which the United States conducts itself in Iraq today is especially important in this regard. At stake is not only the future of Iraq and the Middle East more generally, but also the future of America's reputation, its reliability and its legitimacy as a world leader. The United States will be judged, and should be judged, by the care and commitment it takes to secure a democratic peace in Iraq. It will be judged by whether it really advances the cause of liberalism, in Iraq and elsewhere, or whether it merely defends its own interests.
"No one has made this argument more powerfully, and more presciently, than that quintessential realist, Henry A. Kissinger.
"The task in Iraq, Mr. Kissinger argued in an essay, was not just to win the war but to convey 'to the rest of the world that our first pre-emptive war has been imposed by necessity and that we seek the world's interests, not exclusively our own.' America's 'special responsibility, as the most powerful nation in the world,' he said, 'is to work toward an international system that rests on more than military power — indeed, that strives to translate power into cooperation. Any other attitude will gradually isolate and exhaust us.'"
It's impossible not to have fun with Dean's Iowa concession speech, but as Campaign Desk notes, lazy political journalists are using it as a cudgel.
Following the abysmal SOTU from the Taunter in Chief, Atrios asks, when are they going to stop calling him "popular?"
*****
With denials like this, can the A-Rod trade not be imminent?
"Mr. Cheney continued, 'Working cooperatively against the dangers of a new era will place demands on us all, and there will be occasional differences, even among allies who have great respect for one another.'"
Whoa, the thin air in Switzerland must have affected Cheney's brain. But the cynical Dutch don't buy it. "'This overture comes during an election year,' said Carel N. Van Der Spek, a Dutch banker. 'The Bush administration wants to draw down its troops in Iraq, and to do that, it needs helps from Europe.'"
Damn you, Dutchman!
Along these lines, Robert Kagan writes today on the failure of the Bush administration to establish legitimacy with its dismissive attitude towards Europe -- and vice versa. Noting a fundamental change in the U.S. philosophy behind its foreign policy, Kagan notes the change in tone with the Bush administration's unabashed self-interest. "'We fight not just for ourselves but for all mankind,' Benjamin Franklin declared of the American Revolution, and whether or not that has always been true, most Americans have always wanted to believe that it is true."
The Bush adminstration has chosen unilateralism at the same time that European politicians have cynically used fear of American power to their own ends, creating a growing schism within the West, at a time when greater cooperation to fight multinational terrorism is needed.
"Americans therefore cannot ignore the unipolar predicament. Perhaps the singular failure of the Bush administration is that it has been too slow to recognize this. Mr. Bush and his advisers came to office guided by the narrow realism that dominated in Republican foreign policy circles during the Clinton years. The Clinton administration, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, wrote in a famous essay in January 2000, had failed to focus on the 'national interest' and instead had addressed itself to 'humanitarian interests' or the interests of 'the international community.' The Bush administration, by contrast, would take a fresh look at all treaties, obligations and alliances and re-evaluate them in terms of America's "national interest.'"
..."This is precisely what even America's closest friends fear: that the United States will wield its unprecedented vast power only for itself. In her essay, Ms. Rice derided "the belief that the United States is exercising power legitimately only when it is doing so on behalf of someone or something else." But for the rest of the world, what other source of legitimacy can there be? When the United States acts in its own interests, Ms. Rice claimed, as would many Americans, it necessarily serves the interests of everyone.
"'To be sure,' she argued, 'there is nothing wrong with doing something that benefits all humanity, but that is, in a sense, a second-order effect.'
"But could even America's closest friends ever be persuaded that an America always pursuing its self-interest could be relied upon to serve their interests, too, as some kind of 'second-order effect'?
"Both the unipolar predicament and the American character require a much more expansive definition of American interests. The United States can neither appear to be acting only in its self-interest, nor can it in fact act as if its own national interest were all that mattered. Even at times of dire emergency, and perhaps especially at those times, the world's sole superpower needs to demonstrate that it wields its great power on behalf of its principles and all who share them.
"The manner in which the United States conducts itself in Iraq today is especially important in this regard. At stake is not only the future of Iraq and the Middle East more generally, but also the future of America's reputation, its reliability and its legitimacy as a world leader. The United States will be judged, and should be judged, by the care and commitment it takes to secure a democratic peace in Iraq. It will be judged by whether it really advances the cause of liberalism, in Iraq and elsewhere, or whether it merely defends its own interests.
"No one has made this argument more powerfully, and more presciently, than that quintessential realist, Henry A. Kissinger.
"The task in Iraq, Mr. Kissinger argued in an essay, was not just to win the war but to convey 'to the rest of the world that our first pre-emptive war has been imposed by necessity and that we seek the world's interests, not exclusively our own.' America's 'special responsibility, as the most powerful nation in the world,' he said, 'is to work toward an international system that rests on more than military power — indeed, that strives to translate power into cooperation. Any other attitude will gradually isolate and exhaust us.'"
It's impossible not to have fun with Dean's Iowa concession speech, but as Campaign Desk notes, lazy political journalists are using it as a cudgel.
Following the abysmal SOTU from the Taunter in Chief, Atrios asks, when are they going to stop calling him "popular?"
*****
With denials like this, can the A-Rod trade not be imminent?
posted by John at 7:44 PM
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