http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200411/04/eng20041104_162797.html
UPDATED: 15:59, November 04, 2004
Bush to continue pursuing "Bush Doctrine" in 2nd term
President George W. Bush, after a hard-fought win of re-election, is
expected to continue to pursue the "Bush Doctrine" characterized by
unilateralism and preemption in his second term.
"President Bush is going to interpret the election result as a mandate
for all of his foreign policies and he will be even more assertive, if not more
aggressive, in his second term," Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for
foreign policy and defense studies at the Washington-based Cato Institute, told
Xinhua in an interview after Bush declared victory in the election.
Carpenter predicted that Bush will have to pursue his doctrine in a more
cautious way while carrying on his war in Iraq as the central front.
During the election campaign, Bush repeatedly made clear that he would
continue to pursue the unilateralism which had mae him unpopular in the world.
"I made a decision not to join the International Criminal Court in The
Hague, where our troops can be brought in front of a judge, an unaccounted
judge. I do not think we ought to join that," Bush said during his second
debate with Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry on Oct. 8.
Bush admitted that the decision was unpopular but meanwhile insisted that
it was right. His administration has also reiterated its policy not to sign the
Kyoto Protocol on climate change, citing concerns that it might cost American
jobs.
Similarly, Bush also insisted that his decision to invade Iraq was right,
although it was in fact unpopular in the world after the United States had
failed to find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the major excuse for
Bush to go to war in the Arab country.
Bush has vowed to stay course in Iraq and will not withdraw the roughly
140,000 US troops from that country until the mission is accomplished.
"A free Iraq will be an ally in the war on terror, and this is essential.
A free Iraq will set a powerful example in the part of the world that is
desperate for freedom. A free Iraq will help secure Israel. A free Iraq will
enforce the hopes and aspirations of the reformers in places like Iran. A free
Iraq is essential for the security of this country," Bush said during his first
debate with Kerry on Sept. 30.
The Bush administration has hoped that Iraq could serve as a model of
democracy and freedom and influence the whole Middle East region.
"If democracy comes to Iraq, it is going to have a strong Islamic
component to it and this is something the United States would not like at all.
It will be a Shiite majority government with a very conservative orientation,"
Carpenter said.
But Carpenter said Bush's Iraq war had created more problems than it had
solved.
"The Iraq war was a diversion from the war on terrorism. It is entirely
counterproductive to the war against terrorism. Osama bin Laden wants to
portray the US foreign policy as a design to subjugate Islamic countries and
wage a war on Islamic civilization.With the United States invading and
occupying Iraq, a lot of Islamists believe in Osama bin Laden whom they may not
have believed before," Carpenter said.
Carpenter was echoed by Thomas Sanderson, a senior fellow at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think-tank.
"I do not believe Iraq justifies the preemptive strike. I think other
countries or groups might, but I do not think Iraq does," Sanderson told
Xinhua.
But analysts also agreed that Bush is likely to use the preemptive
strategy more cautiously in the second term due to the mess in Iraq.
"He is going to interpret the (election) result as a vindication of the
doctrine of the preemptive action. We can expect that there will be other
applications of that doctrine in a second Bush administration, though it will
be very cautious in that case," Carpenter said.
To Sanderson, the quagmire in Iraq has seriously impeded the US ability
to launch preemptive strikes against other countries it loathes.
"I think Bush would like to (launch preemptive strikes again), but we do
not have enough military personnel to do it," Sanderson said, adding that the
US military has already been overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But Carpenter also noted that this would not limit the United States from
possibly launching surgical air strikes against targets in Iran, Syria, or even
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
One of the biggest challenges facing the second Bush administration is to
succeed both in Iraq and in the war on terrorism.
"The biggest disaster that could happen is that we do not succeed in
Iraq. We will succeed," Bush said during the first debate.
To ensure success, Bush is expected to continue to apply the strategy of
staying on the offensive and spreading democracy and freedom at the same time
as he promised throughout the election campaign.
"I would not be surprised if Bush escalates the course in Iraq after the
election. Whether it will work is another question. Even if we escalate, it is
likely to be similar to US experience in Vietnam, the French experience in
Algeria and the Soviet experience in Afghanistan," Carpenter said.
Source: Xinhua
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