Stop The Clock!

This article by Steven Weber really highlights what a disaster Bush has been:

In 2001, the Administration declared a revolution in the practice and substance of US foreign policy. It ridiculed liberal internationalist ideals of multilateral cooperation. It opposed using US military power dressed up as "nation-building". It wrote off global warming as Al Gore's obsession, and it said it wouldn't get bogged down, as its predecessors had, in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Then after 9/11, the Administration went further, developing a radical new doctrine for the pre-emptive use of military force. The war on terrorism became its defining issue indeed its supreme purpose superseding all else, strategically as well as morally.

Today, the world looks very different...

Weber cites a whole host of issues on which the USA has back-tracked, wasted time, and squandered opportunities. For example, last month Bush, who called Kim Jong-il a "tyrant" and "pygmy" in 2003, wrote the North Korean leader a personal "Dear Mr Chairman" letter.

The Republican candidates who would build on Bush's old approach to foreign policy clearly don't get how the world has changed. But neither do Democrats who stress reversing what Bush has done. No one should feel vindicated by the Bush Administration's reversals, because defining the future of US foreign policy in terms of the past would be as big a mistake for the next president as it was for Bush.