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The Consensus

But it’s worth remembering what helped to get us into Iraq: a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy that favors U.S. military intervention abroad whenever we may be able to accomplish something that looks appealing. That was our national approach under the past three presidents, and it’s a safe bet it will be our approach under […]

But it’s worth remembering what helped to get us into Iraq: a bipartisan consensus on foreign policy that favors U.S. military intervention abroad whenever we may be able to accomplish something that looks appealing. That was our national approach under the past three presidents, and it’s a safe bet it will be our approach under the next one. ~Steve Chapman

Mr. Chapman’s argument that all three candidates endorse the interventionist consensus certainly makes sense to me, since I have been making the same one for months.  After eight years of nation-building, cruise missile strikes and air wars, a candidate promising to stop doing all or at least most of those things was very appealing.  I didn’t vote for that one, either.  Now we are faced with the end of another two-term presidency marred by foreign policy excesses and failures, and we have a candidate who proposes not only to end one of the most egregious examples of the administration’s failure but also to change the “mindset” that led to it.  That sounds fine, except that, as Chapman argues, he isn’t going to change the mindset or the assumptions about American “leadership.”  Someone appalled by Kosovo might have been moved to vote for Gov. Bush and his “humble” foreign policy, only to find the new administration invading Iraq a few years later.  Now many are tempted because of the disaster of Iraq to back someone else who accepts the same interventionist consensus.  Eight years ago few would have guessed that Bush would plunge headlong into an invasion of Iraq, but the acceptance of the consensus view all but guaranteed some terrible foreign policy decisions.  There is a level of confidence in Obama’s restraint among his supporters that never ceases to amaze me, but his acceptance of the consensus view all but ensures that he will use force counterproductively and in ways harmful to the national interest, because that it how interventionism works.  I take Dr. Hadar’s point that Obama is more likely to withdraw from Iraq, but part of the “incomplete information” problem is that we cannot be sure whether he will inaugurate some brand new folly.  I remain unconvinced that the best decision is to endorse one side of the interventionist consensus in an attempt to undermine another part of it.

Update: Brendan O’Neill’s cover piece from the 2/25 issue restates the case against Obama’s interventionism.

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