Cause and Effect in Bush Foreign Policy

"Today I have outlined a broad agenda to advance human dignity, and enhance the security of all of us. The defeat of terror ... the protection of human rights ... the spread of prosperity ... the advance of democracy ... these causes, these ideals, call us to great work in the world. Each of us alone can only do so much. Together we can accomplish so much more."
--George W. Bush, Speech to the UN, September 2004

Here is the cause:

Bush's Flip Flops
The Nation
written by Robert Scheer.

"If they were true to their principles, moderate Republicans and consistent conservatives would be supporting John Kerry. Instead, their acquiescence to the reckless whims of George W. Bush marks a descent into that political abyss of opportunism where partisanship is everything and principle nothing.

"How else to explain their cynical support for this shallow adventurer, a phony lightweight who has bled the Treasury dry while incompetently squandering the lives of young Americans in a needless imperial campaign?

"If Al Gore had been knighted President by the Supreme Court and overseen this mess instead of Dubya, the rational remnant of the Republican Party would be rightly calling for his head....

"But don't take my word for it: That the occupation of Iraq is a festering disaster was finally acknowledged by some Republican senators on Sunday's talk shows in the wake of the latest depressing prognostications of U.S. intelligence agencies.....

"This is why in 2000, candidate Bush, pretending to be conservative, said he was against "nation-building." Now, led by radical ideologues way outside the conservative mainstream, he's got us trying to build two nations -- and failing -- with many in his Administration hoping to take on a few more in a second term."

And here is the effect:

The Words Unsaid
National Review Online
written by David Frum.

"Lovely speech by the president to the U.N. -- but a question. What happened to the Iran paragraph? Just three days ago, the Iranian government formally defied the International Atomic Energy Authority. Breaking promises made as recently as October 2003, Iran will continue to move to enrich uranium -- a process that can only be intended for weapons.

"By its own rules, the IAEA is now bound to lay the problem before the Security Council..... So shouldn’t President Bush have said something about it? Given some public indication of the stance the U.S. will take -- and of its expectations of the world community? The president touched on many subjects of interest to the United States, but the looming threat of nuclearization in Iran and the very horrible likelihood that North Korea has already nuclearized surely top the list?"