"There ought to be limits
to freedom..."
— George W. Bush,
commenting on the website
www.gwbush.com
QUOTES OF THE YEAR:
"I did the right thing. It's a little
early to project the amount of money the Legislature will be dealing with, and as you know
I hope I'm not here to deal with it. I'm seeking another office." --Governor George
W. Bush, on the effect of his tax cuts on the Texas budget. 7/13/00
"If you asked me, life or death, 'You've got to tell me how big the tax cut is, that
George is proposing,' I couldn't tell you. I don't give a damn. Because I'm out of it. I'm
out of it." --ex-President Bush, recent NYT interview
"If you don't think it's a gamble to
put a man in the White House who believes we should have guns in church, ... who was such
a failure as a businessman that his company was nicknamed "El-Busto," who wants
to turn our Social Security system into a Wall Street boiler room, who can't name a single
thing he disagrees with Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson on, who smeared a bona fide hero
named John McCain, and whose principle policy proposal is to give America's surplus to the
idle rich in the form of a $1.3 trillion tax cut, you're either nuts or a
Republican." ... Equal Time co-host
Paul Begala, shooting the bull.
The Next Four
Years: A Political Forecast
By Tom Barry, Laura Carlsen, and John
Gershman | November 10, 2004
The below policy review was written by the three
senior program staff of the IRC: Tom Barry, Laura Carlsen, and John Gershman. Barry is the
IRC’s policy director, Carlsen directs the IRC’s America’s Program, and
Gershman is the IRC codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus, a joint IRC-IPS program.
Candidate George W. Bush during the 2000 campaign
outlined a policy agenda that was largely in keeping with the moderate conservatism and
foreign policy realism of his father’s administration. In practice, the first GW Bush
administration pursued a radical policy agenda that aimed to rid both domestic and foreign
policy of all liberal policy frameworks.
In economic policy, the administration rejected the
notions of a social democratic management of capitalism in favor of policies that catered
to the short-and medium-term interests of Corporate America. In social policy, the views
of the social conservatives and the Religious Right became the Bush presidency’s
favored framework for interpreting social ills. The Bush White House joined the culture
war on the side of those who believe that fundamentalist Judeo-Christian values should
guide U.S. domestic and foreign policy. The liberal principle upholding the separation of
church and state was rejected in favor of rhetoric and policy initiatives that brought
religion not only into the public sphere but also directly into government.
In foreign policy, the first GW Bush administration broke
with candidate Bush’s promise to consult more closely with allies and adopt a more
humble posture in international affairs. Instead, the administration took immediate aim at
an array of international treaties that were regarded as constraints on U.S. military
options and on U.S. corporate interests. The Bush foreign policy team has not argued that
multilateralism needs reforming to ensure its effectiveness. Rather, an aggressive
anti-multilateralism aimed at international treaties and international forums it does not
control is an imperative of its ideological commitment to U.S. supremacy.
The assault on all vestiges of political
liberalism—from multilateralism to the effective dismantling of the New Deal reforms
of the 1930s and the New Politics reforms of the 1960s and early 1970s—will continue
but at an accelerated pace during the second Bush administration. The four main pressure
groups that have united behind the Bush administration include on the ideological side,
the Religious Right and the neoconservatives; and on the material side, the elites of
Corporate America and the militarists of the military-industrial complex. Although each
pressure group fields its own specialized policy institutes, all four sectors are
represented in the leading right-wing think tanks and foundations, such as the American
Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The radical policy agenda of the Bush administration is
the product of the rise of the New Right, the neoconservatives, and the Cold Warrior
coalition of the 1970s that birthed the “Reagan Revolution.” These radicals
believe that the so-called Reagan Revolution, while making important gains in shifting
political discourse to the right, did not fulfill its promise. The political operatives,
ideologues, and strategists that circle President Bush will during the second GW Bush
administration aim to deal a final blow to the “liberal establishment.” The
administration, appealing to its much-ballyhooed electoral “mandate,” will take
aim at all the manifestations of “liberalism” both in domestic policy and in the
conduct of U.S. foreign and military policy.
This policy agenda will not only advance radical reforms
that aim to sweep aside all vestiges of the liberal reforms of the 1930s-1940s period, but
it will also aim to rid the U.S. government bureaucracy and the judicial system of all
those who oppose this agenda. And it will take aim at centrists, liberals, and
progressives in nongovernmental organizations for their purportedly anti-patriotic,
partisan positions. At the same time, the U.S. government will pursue a dual agenda with
respect to inter-governmental institutions and mechanisms: undermining their ability to
constrain U.S. power, while supporting the increased presence and influence of NGO
consultants and pressure groups that affirm the Bush administration’s agenda within
these multilateral forums.
Specific Foreign Policy Implications:
The foreign, military, and economic policies of the
second GW Bush administration will likely be felt throughout the world. No region or
country will be unaffected by the new administration’s pursuit of its agenda to
restructure the global order in line with its sense of U.S. moral superiority and its
confidence in U.S. military might. However, some of the main repercussions will probably
include the following:
• The U.S. grand strategy to restructure the Middle
East will remain central to U.S. foreign policy and will likely be pursued at a more rapid
pace.
• Multilateralism will continue to erode both as a
process and as a principle for resolving problems that threaten international security and
progress. President Bush and his foreign policy advisers regard multilateral instruments
of global governance mainly as a constraint to U.S. national interests, although
occasionally they will opportunistically appeal to multilateral forums to endorse or
support U.S. policies, especially if it serves to induce burden-sharing of U.S.-led
initiatives.
• The occupation of Iraq will not lead to the
democracy and freedom the White House predicts. It’s unlikely that the new Bush
administration will, at least in its first two years, admit its mistakes and end its
military occupation, despite heavy costs and casualties and mounting opposition at home
and abroad.
• Intelligence reform will not improve U.S.
intelligence operations that track real threats to U.S. national security. The leading
figures in the new foreign policy team, including the president himself, will likely
continue to evaluate and manage intelligence operations not in terms of their accuracy but
rather in terms of their coherence with U.S. national security doctrine, their support of
the needs of the military-industrial complex, and their support of the
administration’s political and military agenda.
• The State Department and the CIA will become yet
more subservient to both the Pentagon and the vice-president’s office. Dissenting
voices will be ignored or suppressed.
• As the U.S. budget crisis deepens, the
administration will reduce funding for development and humanitarian assistance abroad
unless it directly furthers U.S. foreign and military policy goals.
• The global divide between the U.S. government and
other nations will deepen, and the coalitions that the U.S. builds will be with nations
that are either ideologically aligned (such as Italy), are driven primarily by economic
opportunism (such as Japan), share a sense of an Anglo-American world order (Great
Britain, Australia), can be counted on to promote the U.S. agenda regionally (such as
Colombia), are repressive nations that have become new dependencies in the war on terror
(such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan), or are countries that appeal to imperial or hegemonic
prerogatives in their regions (such as Israel and Russia).
• Countries targeted by the Bush administration and
the neoconservatives as existing or potential threats to U.S. supremacy—Iran, North
Korea, and China—will likely take active steps to develop an effective deterrent
capacity against military strikes, thus leading to increased weapons proliferation and
reduced willingness by nations to enter into arms control agreements.
• The Bush administration will remain committed to a
foreign policy of regime change effected by a combination of military, political, and
economic interventionism in such countries as Cuba and Syria.
• The new Bush administration will pursue a more
aggressive energy policy to secure oil supplies in Africa, the Middle East, and Central
Asia, and will intensify efforts to open up areas for drilling in the United States
itself, such as the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.
• U.S. trade deficit and budget deficits (and
related unsustainable dollar values) will remain problems that will undermine the U.S.
global position and increasingly threaten the fragile state of the international economy.
Pressure from Europe and international financial institutions for the United States to
restructure its economic policies will trigger intensifying friction internationally,
leading to new pressure for the U.S. government to restructure its domestic economic
policies by raising taxes, cutting spending, and increasing interest rates. Although the
U.S. government proclaims its commitment to unilateralism and to protecting its global
hegemonic position, the second GW Bush administration will be forced to come to terms with
how dependent the U.S. economy is on the capital flows of foreign investors to sustain the
unprecedented debt burden accumulated by Washington.
• Although the centrality of Israel-Palestine to
tensions in the Middle East will manifest its reality, the Bush administration will not
back away from its support for the hardliners in Israel, unless Israelis themselves chart
a new political course.
• U.S. trade officials will intensify their campaign
to establish bilateral and regional trade agreements, and the U.S. government will resist
all trade and investment proposals that do not serve the direct interests of U.S.
corporations. The Bush administration is not an adherent to free trade philosophy but
rather sees “free trade” as an instrument that usually advances the interests of
Corporate America. It’s likely that the economic unilateralism of the Bush White
House will undermine the process of global economic governance embodied in institutions
such as the World Trade Organization and forums such as the G7-8.
• Democrats and Republicans in Congress will remain
united around a bipartisan agenda of promoting an American worldview through U.S.
political aid (channeled to organizations and movements by the National Endowment for
Democracy and U.S. Agency for International Development), propaganda, and public
diplomacy. During the second GW Bush administration, the neoconservative policy framework
of “democratic globalism” will serve as it has since the early 1980s—as the
glue of a bipartisan foreign policy that provides a liberal rationale for military and
political interventionism around the globe.
Reactions by Political Parties and Governments
The first GW Bush administration came to office in 2001
with the conviction that it needed to construct a new foreign and military policy that was
shaped by the realities of a unipolar world. The second GW Bush administration, despite
the setbacks in Iraq, will likely retain this basic worldview. However, there is the
possibility that such a U.S. posture will spur the emergence of a more plurilateral world
in which a regionally readjusted balance of political, economic, and diplomatic power
offers a new, positive vision of cooperative international relations. Alternatively, stark
divides in international affairs could give rise to more anarchic, competitive, and
conflictive relations within and among nations.
• The Democratic Party will offer little or no
leadership in national security matters, focusing instead on domestic policies and global
economic issues that offer more potential for building constituencies and coalitions to
oppose the White House. Thus, the Bush administration can count on reduced public and
media interest in foreign policy.
• Other nations have thus far been reluctant to
oppose U.S. global hegemony and political leadership. It’s likely that a second GW
Bush administration will spur a new resolve by foreign nations, large and small, to
confront U.S. agendas that diverge from or intentionally undermine international law and
multilateral rules. Gradually, we can expect a more unified and clearly articulated
counter-agenda by countervailing blocs of nations that insist on the importance of
international treaties, reassert the primacy of diplomacy in settling security issues, and
forge a policy consensus around solutions that address the precarious state of the
international economy and the impoverishment of many nations and communities. But U.S.
military supremacy will remain uncontested in any new balance of power that emerges.
• There appears to be a political counter-current in
Latin America (Venezuela, Brazil, and Uruguay) to the growing right-wing politics in the
United States. Allies of the U.S. war in Iraq have lost some elections, (notably Spain)
but some supporters have won (Howard in Australia, Arroyo in the Philippines), which
suggests that while Europe is a center of opposition, that opposition, for ideological or
opportunistic reasons, is not uniform.
• The Cancun Coalition that opposed Washington and
the European Union in the World Trade Organization in 2003 has yet to demonstrate staying
power as an alternative power bloc of developing countries in global trade negotiations.
• Planetary issues, particularly global climate
change, could lead concerned governments and a restive transnational community of
activists and citizens to coalesce into a force with the power and will to confront the
Bush government. If this happens, the second Bush administration will have serious
difficulties sweeping this issue aside.
Reactions by the Global Justice Movement
Citizen activism, spearheaded by progressive and liberal
groups, has been hailed as the “other global superpower” and as the main source
of innovative, constructive thinking about solutions to the pressing transnational
security, development, governance, and environmental challenges of the 21st century. The
tenuous sustainability of the two major transnational citizen movements—one opposing
corporate-driven globalization, and the other opposing the U.S. war on Iraq—has
created some skepticism about the real power and political coherence of these movements.
Nonetheless, it’s likely that globally networked progressive and liberal citizen
movements will eventually regroup and that they will benefit from their experiences in
projecting and implementing their global agendas.
Although plagued by their own inconsistencies,
differences, and short-term attention spans, transnational citizen organizing may again
surge as a force that the second GW Bush administration cannot ignore—especially if
this activism finds common ground with governments, political parties, community
organizations, and business sectors that share concerns about the impacts of misdirected
and misconstrued U.S. moral clarity and military might. In the short term, however, the
global justice movement will need to come to terms with a number of shortcomings and
obstacles before it can, either alone or in coalition, constitute a strong counterweight
to the Bush administration’s reckless pursuit of U.S. hegemony.
• There is a dangerous likelihood that international
political opposition to the second Bush government will become ever less visionary, less
proactive, and more reactive. This trend was already evident during the first GW Bush
administration, when the predominance of national security issues narrowed political
discourse and sidelined efforts at envisioning new policy frameworks. This tendency will
be even more pronounced now, as center-left forces find themselves in a more polarized and
defensive situation—fighting desperately to hold on to the reforms in civil rights,
women’s rights, social programs, environmental law, human rights, etc. that became a
hallmark of an enlightened and more inclusive U.S. society. Moreover, this reactive,
defensive response could lead to abandoning efforts begun over the past decade to develop
constructive alternatives and set new agendas for the 21st century from the perspective of
an internationally networked civil society.
• It would be a great loss if the myriad global
citizen activist movements currently addressing development, security, justice, and
environmental issues were to reframe their movements to exclusively address anti-American
and anti-imperialist issues. Although such a response would serve to channel much of the
indignation sparked by the arrogance and militarism of the U.S. government, the
de-emphasis on creating viable national and international alternatives to dominant
economic and political structures could seriously divert civil society movements that are
promoting new agendas that address both traditional and nontraditional threats to peace,
equity, development, and sustainability.
• Increased efforts by citizen activists to develop
a global anti-war movement directed against U.S. wars and occupations could lead to
resurgent anti-war activities directed against the Bush administration and its small
circle of allies. But if accepted as a single focus, the energy and resources devoted to
opposing war and imperialism will likely divert from efforts to propose new agendas that
could lead to a more lasting peace. These include policy agendas to create equitable
multilateral bodies, control transnational corporations, and to build a new and more
multidimensional and forward-looking international community including governments,
business, and civil society united around principles of sustainable development and
constructive international engagement.
The quick dissipation of massive international campaigns
to oppose the invasion of Iraq demonstrated that even vigorous and widespread protest
cannot always overcome the combination of jingoism, nationalism, and powerlessness that
sets in after military offensives. Veteran opponents of both liberal interventionism
(Southeast Asia) and right-wing, neoconservative interventionism (Central America) will
recall that these movements persisted for many years—more than a decade in the case
of Vietnam—before the society as a whole recognized the folly and crime of such
military interventionism.
• A revived anti-war movement is unlikely to have
any impact on the Bush administration unless it becomes a massive movement that includes
heartland sectors in the United States (including Bush constituencies) and military units
themselves. But since the mobilizations before the invasion of Iraq, the global anti-war
movement has lost clout and credibility and limited its reach by ignoring the real need
for aggressive police and military actions against international (primarily Islamic)
terrorist networks.
• Moreover, some leading actors in the anti-war
movement, both in the United States and abroad, have further distanced the movement from
the concerns and interests of the general public by framing it oftentimes in terms of
solidarity with Iraqi militants, rather than standing on the principles of illegal war and
destructive occupation. If a movement whose principal focus is the U.S. presence in Iraq
is to help steer U.S. foreign and military policy off its radical, delusional course, it
should frame itself as a peace movement concerned about all actors who rely primarily on
militarist strategies to achieve their political ends. Signs of such an anti-occupation
peace movement are already emerging.
• Nonprofit policy organizations, foundations, and
activist groups, especially those to the left of center, will likely face increased
government scrutiny, harassment, repression, espionage, and funding cutbacks.
• Rather than channeling multiple energies into a
narrowly defensive posture, a renewed global citizen’s movement must counter the Bush
agenda with a cohesive alternative agenda. The Bush agenda has been forged by an uneasy
but successful coalition of neoconservatives, social conservatives, economic libertarians,
and militarists that have melded radical ideologies, theologies, and policies into a
seemingly coherent plan of action for the nation and the world.
• The center-left has nothing close to an
alternative agenda that integrates cultural, security, ethical, economic, social, and
political issues. Liberal and progressive forces have typically organized around single
issues rather than an overall policy framework that unites domestic and foreign policy
agendas around cross-cutting principles. This imbalance is by no means entirely due to the
intellectual or political failings of center-left reformists. The forces of corporate
globalization have decimated some of the main constituencies, notably organized labor, for
the social democratic reform agendas that counter the power of capital with power of
government and people. In a related development, transnational capital, reacting to the
popular challenges of the 1960s and 1970s, became increasingly politically astute, not
just in terms of campaign funding but also in funding an infrastructure of policy
institutes, judicial reform networks, think tanks, and national coalitions that propagate
the ideology of unrestrained profit-seeking and economic libertarianism, while at the same
time equating individualism, materialism, and markets with traditional religious and ethic
values.
• In this context, if the right-wing radicals are to
face major setbacks, they will be the consequence more of their own excesses and divisions
than because of the philosophical cohesion of any alternative policy framework or the
deeply rooted strength of a united center-left opposition. In that case, the setbacks
experienced by the radical right will be only temporary.
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