Presentation by Dr. Kevin Lasher POL 314: U.S. Foreign Policy Presentation by Dr. Kevin Lasher

The Bush Foreign Policy: An Evaluation

Bush Foreign Policy

Bush: The New Truman? President Truman left office very unpopular, but is viewed as great or near-great by many historians

The Events of September 11, 2001

Bush Doctrine Realism Hegemonism

Bush Doctrine Preemptive/preventative war Unilateralism Maintain US hegemony Terrorism and rogue states Fight terrorism wherever it appears Focus on Afghanistan and Iraq

Foreign Policy Successes Significant increase in aid to Africa to combat AIDs

Foreign Policy Successes Typical “complicated” relationship with China

Foreign Policy Successes Good relations with Russia; close Bush-Putin ties; manage Russian opposition to BMD system Slight late deterioration intensifies under Obama

Foreign Policy Successes Six party talks with North Korea in efforts to encourage de-nuclearization ?????????

Foreign Policy Successes US (and others) convince Libya’s Gaddafi to abandon WMD programs in 2003 in an effort to “normalize” relations with West

Foreign Policy Successes NATO added seven new members – Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia – during the Bush years

Foreign Policy Successes Free trade agreements with ten additional nations including El Salvador, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Nicaragua

Foreign Policy Successes Iraq in the post-surge period ????????? Improvement of a very bad situation Iraq – NOT a success

Global War on Terrorism

Global War on Terrorism X

Global War on Terrorism Dept. of Homeland Security USA Patriot Act Improved intelligence Int’l cooperation to weaken terrorist networks Afghanistan, Part I

GWOT: However … Have been attempted attacks within US and successful attacks outside US Al-Qaeda in Iraq (ISIS) Al-Qaeda “got lucky” Resurgence of Taliban (and Al-Qaeda) in Afghanistan Bin Laden had achieved goals

GWOT: However --- Guantanamo and torture Alive as Bush leaves office

Global War on Terrorism Flawed but successful in #1 area – no additional attacks on US soil History will clarify view of this issue X

Foreign Policy Failures Bush administration ignores the issue of global warming

Foreign Policy Failures USA viewed unfavorably by majority of the world by the end of the Bush presidency

Foreign Policy Failures

Foreign Policy Failures Hurricane Katrina response

“It takes a truly spectacular domestic-policy blunder to register as a foreign-policy screw-up, too. Yet Bush’s bungled response to Hurricane Katrina was exactly that. Observers around the world saw this debacle as both a demonstration of waning U.S. competence and a revealing indicator of continued racial inequality, if not outright injustice. …Because America’s “soft power” depends on other states believing that we know what we are doing and that we stand for laudable ideals, the disaster in New Orleans was yet another self-inflicted blow to America’s global image. If the United States cannot take good care of its own citizens, why should anyone think we can ‘nation-build’ in some distant foreign land?” Stephen Walt, November 2010

Foreign Policy Failures Could the Bush administration have done more to prevent 9/11 attacks?

Iraq War

War with Iraq: Why? War of choice (not a war of necessity)

Preemptive War for WMD “The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.” March 19, 2003 George Bush

Preemptive War for WMD “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” August 26, 2002 Dick Cheney

Preemptive War for WMD “We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.” February 5, 2003 Colin Powell

Preemptive War for WMD “We know for a fact that there are weapons there.” January 9, 2003 Ari Fleischer, WH spokesman

Preemptive War for WMD “We have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That was this war was about and it is about. And we have confidence it will be found.” April 10, 2003 Ari Fleischer, WH spokesman

Preemptive War for WMD “We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” March 30, 2003 Donald Rumsfeld

No Weapons of Mass Destruction Found

“The ISG has not found evidence that Saddam possessed WMD stocks in 2003.” Iraq Survey Group Report, October 2004

“Although we have not found stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, we were right to go into Iraq.” George Bush, July 12, 2004 “Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.” George Bush, October 8, 2004

Failures: Iraq Bush administration “misled” nation into war with claims of WMD Bush administration “misled” nation by implying that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11 Iraq (2003-2006) after toppling regime is marred by poor planning, chaos, rise of insurgency (DVD No End in Sight)

Failures: Iraq Horrors of Abu Ghraib prison

Failures: Iraq Hegemonism discredited Did not bring democracy to Iraq or greater Middle East

Failures: Iraq Crucial caveats …

Failures: Iraq What f Iraq becomes a “functioning democracy” in the future? What if “Arab Uprisings” (depending on the final outcome) can be partially credited to the overthrow of Saddam?

Bush Foreign Policy

The End