President George W. Bush can't catch a break. Last Thursday, Bush went to Atlanta to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 75th birthday anniversary and was heckled by people complaining (again) about his Iraq policy.
Before, during and after the war, critics have had a field day. The usual modus operandi is saying that the United States acted unilaterally in attacking Iraq. "Arrogant" and "cowboy" are the favored descriptors.
To be fair, there is a good question there. Is America's foreign policy approach wrong? After all, the critics say we've been mucking up the world for some time now. They charge that we supported Latin American dictatorships, ignored human rights violations, fought wars for oil and previously supported Saddam and bin Laden.
Conservatives gnash their teeth at those charges, mainly because most of them are true. But explanations for those actions are easily rendered.
Policy analyst Dinesh D'Souza has crafted such an argument. In his book, "What's So Great About America," D'Souza explores what drives our foreign policy. He starts with Henry Kissinger, who has written that the United States has no real friends or enemies, but only interests.
D'Souza builds off of Kissinger's statement, noting that it would be detrimental for a government to act in any other way. If a government favored another nation's interests over its own, it would sell out its citizens' welfare.-á
Those national interests can sometimes lead to unsavory alliances. D'Souza refers to this as "the principle of lesser evil." One such example is World War II. In order to defeat the Nazism scourge, we allied with the Soviet Union. The reason: mutual interest in defeating the Third Reich.-á
More recently, we aligned with Pakistan in the war on terror. Pakistan had been a Taliban supporter, but its leader, Gen. Parvez Musharaff, had an epiphany. When asked why, he replied, "Because our national interest has changed." Nobody questioned the answer; the reason was obvious.
D'Souza adds in another dimension to American foreign policy. He notes that our country has pursued national interests while "simultaneously promoting noble ideals and the welfare of others ... the ideals dignified the interests."
Recent actions in Somalia, Kosovo and Kuwait illustrated this. We could have fought the Gulf War specifically for the sake of oil and been thoroughly justified, but we didn't; we were more concerned about the Kuwaitis.-á
Critics won't be satisfied with D'Souza's explanation. Then again, they deride America for pursuing our interests while saying other nations should pursue theirs. They screamed about Iraqi children starving under United Nations sanctions but blasted us when we liberated those kids from the tyrant who brought those sanctions on them.
Those critics also forget the billions of dollars in aid sent out yearly as an agent of freedom, not oppression.
Our ideals and national interests defined the war in Iraq. President Bush listed liberation of the Iraqi people as a major reason for the invasion. The jury is still out on WMD, but the Iraqi people have been freed from a megalomaniac's rule and start self-government in July.-á
Foreign policy isn't always pretty or ideal. However, unlike rogue tyrants, terrorists and the French, the United States often pursues actions with others' interests in mind ahead of our own.-á
Write to Jeff at: mannedarena@yahoo.com
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