One of the Democrats’ main critiques of Bush’s foreign policy is “unilateralism.” I have a suggestion for a better word to use: isolation. Not isolationism, but isolation.
Three problems with “Unilateralism”:
1) It is technically not true, as a reporter can point out by asking “What about England”? Denouncing “bilateralism” doesn’t work as well.
2) It is very wonky sounding.
3) It will not automatically be regarded as bad–“We’re not letting the French be the boss of us.”
Instead, you phrase it in these terms:
“Our enemies want a war of civilizations with the Arab and Islamic world united against us, and the Western democracies isolated, weak, and alone. They are trying to divide the United States from Europe, and divide us from the world community as a whole, and to divide Israel from everybody. This is why they bombed the Red Cross. This is why they target Italian soldiers. This is why Osama bin Laden now pretends he has always supported the Palestinians, and why Al Qaeda is murdering people in synagogues in Turkey.
They have succeeded, entirely too well, in dividing the West, in uniting public opinion in the Muslim world against us, in isolating the United States and Israel from our natural allies. (Insert scary poll results.)
We could blame bin laden for this, or Hussein, or Al Jazeera, or dictatorial Arab governments that use Israel and America as scapegoats, or “old Europe”, and we would not be wrong. But the Bush administration is also responsible. Their policy has left us more isolated than we should be; more isolated than we ever had to be.”
And you take it from there.
Disclaimers:
1. Yes I realize this is yet another criticism and not a positive alternative–though you could certainly use it as a starting point for describing the positive alternative. This post is more about debate framing than policy. I’ll write about my vision thingy, such as it is, another time.
2. All of the above is all less applicable if the NATO-ization thing Moe just wrote about is true–I hope it it is but I’m pretty skeptical.
You’ve got mail, Katherine. 🙂
Much better Katherine. I’m still not sure “isolated” is accurate either since it means “to set apart from others,” while we have 30 nations with troops joining ours, so we’re only set apart from some others. But it’s a major improvement in rhetoric. I’d also argue that America is always isolated (as world leaders always have been, are, and will be).
But nitpicking, and my American Exceptionalism aside, a good contribution to ongoing discussions.
Maybe Bush is isolated from the Left, but not from the world. Or perhaps the Left is isolating itself from Bush and conservatives. Bush’s presence in London right now, meeting with the European Union, dispels the isolation theory. And there are too many other examples to recount.
spc67, do you mean this reference to American Exceptionalism? The follow-on articles are pretty good, too.
Thanks for the articles Bird Dog, I hadn’t seen them. Yeah, the Economist would certainly call me an American Exceptionalist.
Or perhaps the Left is isolating itself from Bush and conservatives.
I don’t subscribe to Salon, but I guess the head of Amnesty International has said that unless the left opposes terrorism with the same verve with which they oppose Bush, they will become irrelevant. I think he’s a little late.