The Doctrine of President Bush Essay -- Politics Political

On 20 September 2002, the scouring administration print a national security manifesto overturning the established order. Not because it commits the United States to global intervention Weve been there before. Not because it targets terrorism and rogue states Nothing freshly there either. No, whats new in this document is that it makes a long-building imperial tendency explicit and permanent. The policy paper, titled The National Security Strategy of the United States of the States -- call it the Bush doctrine -- is a romantic justification for easy recourse to war whenever and wherever an American president chooses. This document truly deserves the overused marge revolutionary, but its release was eclipsed by the Iraq debate. Recall the moment. Bush, having just backed away from unilateralism long enough to deliver a speech to the United Nations, was now cogent Congress to give him the power to go to war with Iraq whenever and however he liked. Congress, with selective reluctanc e, was skating sideways toward a qualified endorsement. The administration had fended off doubts from the likes of George Bush Sr.s national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, and retreated from its maximal designs (at least on Tuesdays and Thursdays), giving doubters, and politicians preoccupied with their reelection, reasons to overcome their doubts and sign on. The Bush White reside chose this moment to put down in black and white its grand strategy -- to doctrinize, as it were, its impulse to act alone with the instruments of war. Hitching a ride on Al Qaedas indisputable threat, the doctrine generalizes. It is limitless in time and space. It not only commits the United States to dominating the world from now into the distant future, but al... ...gned to register more than passing note of his speech. As a nation, were still in a trance. The leadership of the most powerful nation-state on earth upshot to set out its grand strategy, its unified theory of everything, and its pri me channels of information dont see fit to let the populace in on the news that their government is hell-bent on empire and has said so in black and white. Nonetheless, Bushs strategy is now in force. It confirms suspicions and stokes paranoia. In propounding that there are no more than two models for how a society lives in the world, and that those who despise the one must enlist behind the other, it indulges in the same drastic oversimplification that motivates the terrorists. Americans will have to contend with the consequences for generations. This is why the Bush doctrine is dangerous Its a gift to anti-Americans everywhere.