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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - April 26, 2010
Ron Paul challenges GOP's foreign policy agenda
By Doug Bandow
It has been nearly a decade since President George W. Bush
chose arrogance over humility as the basis of American
foreign policy. The intervening years have not been good
for the United States or the Republican Party. As the GOP
seeks to take back the White House it needs to conduct a
serious foreign policy debate. Republicans should start
by listening to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).
At the recent Southern Republican Leadership Conference
big spending Mitt Romney bested Rep. Paul by just one vote
in the popularity contest. Yet Paul eschewed reliance on
easy applause lines and challenged the newfound Republican
fondness for big militaries and constant wars.
For instance, Paul observed that conservatives, like
liberals, enjoyed spending money, only "on different
things. They like embassies, and they like occupation.
They like the empire. They like to be in 135 countries
and 700 bases."
Similarly, Paul said, conservatives talked about following
the Constitution, "except for war. Let the president go to
war anytime they want."
Paul garnered applause from more youthful members of the
audience. But boos were heard as well. Many establishment
GOP activists appear to have become wedded to a big-
government foreign policy.
When Politico polled activists and analysts about why the
GOP mainstream was hostile to Paul, James Carafano of the
Heritage Foundation complained that "The deliberate self-
weakening of America is an invitation to disaster."
Carafano argued that Paul failed to fulfill the constitut-
ional obligation to "provide for the common defense" and
that the latter's vision would not keep America "safe,
free, and prosperous."
Yet Washington's policy of promiscuous intervention is not
providing for America's "common defense." Rather, the U.S.
is protecting virtually every other nation. That's one
reason why the Pentagon was incapable of defending
Americans when the U.S. was attacked on 9/11,
Indeed, the "Defense Department" has become anything but.
Most of America's forces do nothing to secure the U.S.
They instead are employed to remake failed societies,
impose Washington's meddlesome dictates, and subsidize
populous and prosperous allies.
Do the Europeans want someone to stop a civil war in
Yugoslavia? They leave it to Americans. Do the Georgians
want someone to protect them after they start a war with
Russia? Tbilisi begs Washington.
Do the South Koreans hope to subsidize North Korea while
someone else guarantees their security? The South Korean
"Blue House" calls the American "White House." Do the
Japanese want to concentrate on economic development while
leaving the protection of regional security to another
country? They turn to the U.S. Do the Israelis want
someone else to disarm Iran? They call on Washington.
And in every case the Republican elite willingly answers
"yes," spending Americans' money to provide for most every
other nations' defense.
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The Europeans might have a larger collective GDP and
population. The South Koreans might enjoy a GDP 40 times
that of the North. Japan might have the world's second
largest economy. Israel might be a regional superpower
with up to 200 nuclear weapons.
Yet in GOP eyes all are helpless American dependents, to
be defended by Washington at all cost?and apparently
forever.
This policy has made America weaker. We are less "safe,
free, and prosperous" as a result.
America's safety is compromised because we are more often
at war and at risk of war. Indeed, intervening promiscuous-
ly and setting tripwires around the world has kept the U.S.
involved in conflict almost constantly after the Cold War.
Iraq is the most obvious disaster. More than 4,000 dead
and tens of thousands maimed or injured Americans. Total
cost likely to hit $2 trillion. The U.S. military over-
stretched. Iran's strategic position greatly strengthened.
In fact, many Republican legislators apparently have come
to recognize reality in Iraq. When asked how many GOP
congressmen believed that the Iraq war had been a mistake,
a panel of three Republican members at a recent Cato
Institute conference agreed: "almost all of us."
But it could be far worse. It appears that top Bush
administration officials debated launching air strikes
against Russian forces during Moscow's conflict with
Georgia.
Ponder the thought: After the U.S. made it through the
Cold War without getting into a shooting match with the
Soviet Union, Washington officials considered attacking
that nuclear-armed power to defend a country which: by
most accounts other than its own started the fighting;
was not party to any military alliance or treaty with
America; and was irrelevant to U.S. security. Had the
administration initiated military action, the unsuspecting
American people could have found themselves in a nuclear
confrontation and even war in August 2008.
Such are the risks to Americans' safety when their
government plays globocop.
The national security state also has made Americans less
free. A century ago social critic Randolph Bourne observed:
"War is the health of the state."
The U.S. was created as a constitutional republic, with a
limited national government bounded by law. Yet the last
Republican administration claimed that the president could
unilaterally, subject to review neither by Congress nor
the courts, order the arrest and indefinite detention of
American citizens in America. In effect, the president
asserted that he was an elected monarch or dictator,
presumed infallible and beyond reproach. The defining
characteristic of the so-called Patriot Act and other such
enactments was not the expansion of federal power, but the
refusal to hold accountable those who exercised the new
power.
Finally, Americans are less prosperous. While U.S. citizens
pay to defend dozens of nations around the world, those
countries invest in business enterprises, economic research
and development, and generous welfare states. Trade
competitors cheerfully accept U.S. military troops while
excluding commercial products.
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The defense budget is the price of our nation's foreign
policy, and the price is high. The U.S. is spending more
than $700 billion annually on the military. In real terms
that is more than at any point during the Cold War, Korean
War, or Vietnam War. Today America accounts for roughly
half of the globe's military outlays.
This is a year when the deficit will run almost $1.6
trillion. When America faces $10 trillion in deficits
over the next decade. When Washington?s debt is climbing
skyward. And when Social Security and Medicare face
unfunded liabilities of an astounding $107 trillion.
Yet Americans, like Ron Paul, who advocate a policy to
actually make America safer, freer, and wealthier, are
routinely vilified by Republican apparatchiks. The Bush
administration and its neoconservative supporters accused
opponents of being defeatists and even traitors. Politico
guest contributor Robert White was more mild, merely
accusing Paul of preaching "isolationism and appeasement"
and of not appearing to be "strong on national defense."
For these Republicans opposition to bombing or invading
other nations is "isolationist." Failing to view war or
the threat of war as the best response to every foreign
problem is "appeasement."
In fact, war should always be a last resort, a matter of
necessity rather than choice. And we can learn much from
the Cold War: there were enthusiastic advocates of prevent-
ive war against both the Soviet Union and China, but
deterrence kept the peace against the likes of Joseph
Stalin and Mao Zedong. In retrospect the latter policy
looks good compared to the potential of triggering World
War III.
Moreover, intervention and conflict beget intervention and
conflict. America's troubles with Iran began in 1953 with
the CIA-backed coup d'etat against the democratically
elected government. Washington's support for the autocratic
Shah sowed the seeds which turned into the 1979 Islamic
revolution.
Fear of aggressive Islamic fundamentalism caused the Reagan
administration to back Saddam Hussein in the 1980s after
he invaded Iran. That encouraged Baghdad to invade Kuwait.
Then came the first Gulf War and Washington's stationing
of troops in Saudi Arabia. Those forces later were targeted
in the Khobar barracks bombings; the U.S. presence also
inflamed hostility from the likes of Osama bin Laden.
According to Paul Wolfowitz, a desire to bring home those
forces was a benefit of the Iraq war. But the Iraq invasion
empowered Iran, now accused of pursuing the Shah's dream
of nuclear weapons. So Washington's sofa samurai are demand-
ing that bombers be sent forthwith against Tehran.
It would have been much better in 1953 had Washington's
coup plotters stayed home. Much brutality, war, and horror
might have been avoided.
Ron Paul isn't likely to be the GOP presidential nominee
in 2012 whatever position he takes on foreign policy. But
for the last decade GOP politicians have inflated foreign
threats, ignored military costs, and disregarded America's
interests in their search for political advantage. If the
Republican Party wants to return to power?and especially
if it genuinely wants to keep America "safe, free, and
prosperous"?it will engage rather than dismiss Rep. Paul's
critique of U.S. foreign policy.
--------------------------------
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute.
A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan,
he is the author of several books, including "Foreign
Follies: America's New Global Empire" (Xulon Press).
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