Originally posted by IL Sean:
Jato I think the message that Bush sends is directly tied to his foreign policy. Coming out and talking about specific rouge nations, calling them out is a blunder IMO.



I don't. The post 9/11 world was put on notice that known terrorist states are on our official s**t-list and for good reason, as it's been proven that UN diplomacy and State Department negociation wasn't cutting the mustard under the previous 2 administrations. Putting Iran, N. Korea, Syria, Libya, Cuba and Iraq on the spot made it clear to the WORLD that we were serious about pushing (forcefully if needed) the end to WMD proliferation among known rogue states and championing the end of state-sponsored terrorism.

Not to beat a dead horse, but Bush using the term "crusade" in his State of the Union address was a BAD thing, as it simply served to piss off most of the Muslim world, even some of out allies. Poor word choice seems to haunt Bush time after time...

Iraq under Hussein is no more, Libya has coughed up their WMD's, Iran has inspectors for the first time in ages sniffing around their nuclear program, N. Korea has come back to the table with a HELL of a lot less sabre-rattling than before and Syria is on the hot-seat staring at US troops and armor only hundreds of miles away from their borders. You can dislike Bush all you want, the FACT is that we've got SOLID results on our hands and his overall vision is working.

It's undeniable. It's also undeniable that when strong action is taken, a few egos and sensibilities were bound to get bruised.

Originally posted by IL Sean:
I do not think the current state of affairs shows in anyway that the current foreign policy is working. We went to Iraq with no exit plan, plain and simple.

I wouldn't say we had NO exit plan, but an ill-planned one. As for our foreign policy not working, read what I typed above and tell me that it's not working...

Originally posted by IL Sean:
The fact that most of the world is unhappy with us is a sign of poor foreign policy. With bad blood between the US and the rest of the world we are unable to be players in the world.

No, there are certain countries that are upset with us due to our fulfilling a UN mission that they themselves backed out of (strictly for political and financial reasons, I might add). We still have a NUMBER of backers and supporters of our efforts. Iraq doesn't constitute our ENTIRE foreign policy; it does have the spotlights on it, though. Don't think for a minute that we've been abandoned by the UN, as they are working with us (and we are working with them) on a number of other issues across the globe.


Originally posted by IL Sean:
How are we to work with other nations in this Multi-Polar world if we do not work at working with the world instead of unilatteraly?

Our actions WEREN'T unilateral!!!! Feel free to browse the list of supporters we had going into Iraq and still have today!

Just because we didn't have the blessing of Russia, Germany and France (all with economic ties to Hussein's regime, I might add AGAIN) going into Iraq doesn't constitute that we "charged" in alone.

Originally posted by IL Sean:
And don't tell me that just because the world doesn't like most of our foreign policy that is ok, that it has nothing to do with our current policy. It is indeed linked, it's a sign is the world is not working with us that something is wrong.

Or it could mean that we are starting to do something RIGHT that has changed the game of half-measures and political chit-chat until it's too damn late to do anything without hobbling our options or setting ourselves up for another 9/11...

I'll not deny we've had our hiccups with a number of nations over Iraq; personally, I'll take bruised egos and whimsical temper-tantrums in the UN any day over putting the blinders on and letting Iran, Syria and N. Korea go totally unchecked in their efforts. F**k the cohesiveness and happiness of the UN Security council if that means the US has to put her immediate and long-term security at risk.

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