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Bush Tactics with Obama Rhetoric
By Kevin Karp
|Aug 08, 2009 08:14 PM
The Associated Press
In an article that I published for TDI last October, I noted how similiar the candidate Barack Obama's Pakistan policy was to that of the Bush Administration, that Obama had actually become more hawkish than Bush with regard to his endorsement of air strikes into Pakistan, and that Bush's policy in that region would likely form a blueprint for the next President. Now, Kori Schake in Foreign Policy has written an excellent piece not only echoing these claims, but also arguing that Obama's entire counterterrorism policy is a mirror image of Bush's, with subtle variations in rhetoric.
So please, let's appreciate that the two political parties in this country actually do have meaningful consensus on important foreign policy issues. Marginalizing the opposition, of which both the Bush and Obama Administrations have been guilty, is extremely counterproductive. After all, reaching consensus is what Obama's politics of "hope" are all about, aren't they?
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Our policy in the Middle East has undergone some pretty big changes since 2003, I think for the better. The successes in Iraq and the shifting of priority to the more pressing threat in Afghanistan are something George W. Bush deserves credit for.
The reason why people gloss these accomplishments I think has to do with the fact that it took years and years of bloody bungling before the Bush Administration finally put things on the right track in the Middle East, something that didn’t happen until the waning days of his presidency. Because public opinion had turned so decisively against him by the time things started to improve, rightfully or not much of the credit will probably end up going to the Bush Administration’s successors.
By Wyatt McKean on 08/10/2009 at 11:46pm Report Abuse
Right. It is Sec. Defense Gates (brought on by Bush and kept on by Obama), who will emerge as a titan - The Economist wrote a very good article on him last week, mentioning that one can see the hand of Bush the Elder in helping set straight the foreign policy of Bush the Younger.
By Kevin Karp on 08/11/2009 at 12:14pm Report Abuse
Wyatt,
To what “successes” in Iraq do you refer? Also, what is the “more pressing threat” in Afghanistan? Just out of curiosity; I always wonder what our justification is…
By Andrew Lohse on 08/18/2009 at 04:21pm Report Abuse
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