Jubilant over President George W. Bush maintaining his position for another four years, neoconservatives who played a leading role in shaping the radical trajectory of U.S. foreign policy after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks appear increasingly divided on key issues and uncertain of their position in BushÂs second term.
Good governance. Consultation. Participation.
This is a time for a Marxist view of foreign policy. As Chico said, “There ain’t no Sanity Clause,” in Washington.
Incredibly, just as President Bush begins his second term with a real need to restore U.S. international standing, he chose John D. Negroponte to head the newly restructured intelligence system. Negroponte, based on the record of his 40-plus years in the State Department, has no credibility at all.
In 1975, polls showed that only 20% of the U.S. population age 18-29 trusted the Pentagon. That number tended upward through the next quarter century until, by 2000, the military stood head and shoulders above every other national institution in the public’s trust. A March 2003 poll of 1,200 college undergraduates by the Harvard Institute of Politics found that 75% said the military would “do the right thing” most or all of the time. Gallup reported a similar finding a year later.
Article 25: “The state shall guarantee the reforming of the Iraqi economy according to modern economic bases, in a way that ensures complete investment of its resources, diversifying its sources and encouraging and developing the private sector.”
The song speaks of “those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer.”
The prevailing sentiment, less “laid back,” refers to “the dog days of summer” from which the rich and well-connected have historically sought relief by getting out of town. Indeed, one can easily picture Caesar Augustus—in whose honor the Roman Senate renamed and lengthened the sixth month in the Julian calendar—abandoning Rome in the same way Congress and the president flee Washington.
Within a day of arriving at the United Nations John Bolton, the former lobbyist for Taiwan and advocate for one permanent seat on the Security Council, the United States, had cut a deal with the Chinese representative. China wants to stop an additional permanent Security Council seat for Japan. The United States had promised Japan its support in return for its loyalty over Iraq, but hated Germany more than it loves Japan. So the two agreed to thwart the attempt by the G-4 (Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan), to secure permanent seats during the current reform proposals.