A REAL CHOICE IN FOREIGN POLICY
Editorial de
Por su interés y relevancia, he seleccionado el artículo que sigue para incluirlo en este sitio web. (L. B.-B.)
When
Americans elect a president next month, the number-one issue will be the
candidates' fitness to serve as commander in chief, leading the war against
Islamist terrorism. President Bush and John Kerry offer sharply different
records and views of the role America should play in world affairs.
Since September 11, President Bush has offered a forward-looking, active
approach to confronting terrorism and the regimes that support it. Mr. Kerry, by
contrast, offers a much more passive, reactive approach to the problem. While
the Bush administration has adopted a policy which focuses on moving to capture
or kill terrorists before they target the United States and its allies, Mr.
Kerry has suggested that terrorism is best handled as a law-enforcement matter.
The Massachusetts senator has also taken sharply contradictory positions on key
issues such as the use of pre-emption in handling terrorist threats, the use of
force in Iraq and U.S. troop levels abroad.
The contrast
between the two men becomes even more stark when one compares Mr. Kerry's record
on foreign policy issues during his 20 years in the Senate with the president's
handling of the war since September 11.
Less than one month after the attacks, Mr. Bush embarked on a successful
military campaign to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. During his
January 2002 State of the Union address, Mr. Bush declared the governments of
Iraq, Iran and North Korea to be members of an "axis of evil" — rogue states
that support terrorism and work to develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
with which to menace their neighbors. The president sought to mobilize support
for military action against Saddam Hussein if he refused to comply with 12 years
of Security Council resolutions requiring him to relinquish his WMD.
Fourteen months later, after failing to win support from nations like France
and Germany for military action, Mr. Bush led a coalition of approximately 30
countries into war in Iraq which was successful in toppling Saddam. (Mr. Kerry
regrettably has denigrated these countries as a coalition of "the bribed, the
coerced, the bought.")The military action to depose Saddam had a side benefit.
Just days after Saddam was captured by U.S. forces in December, Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi announced that he was relinquishing his WMDs. And Pakistan
(which after September 11 had joined the United States in fighting al Qaeda),
began to cooperate with Washington in unraveling the nuclear proliferation
network run by scientist A.Q. Khan.
Mr. Bush has worked long and hard to come up with a plan to compel Iran and
North Korea to end their nuclear-weapons efforts. On North Korea, Mr. Bush has
pursued multilateral talks. On Iran, the administration has supported the
European Union's multilateral initiative. Thus far, neither effort has made any
progress.
Just last week, Mr. Bush was successful on another front in the campaign
against Islamist terror: his campaign to bring democratic institutions and the
rule of law to the Muslim world. In Afghanistan, millions went to the polls
despite Taliban threats in that country's first free, multiparty election.
Meanwhile, in Iraq, government forces and American troops are engaged in a tough
counterinsurgency effort against terrorists working to sabotage that country's
first free election.
By any measure, Mr. Kerry's record is far less distinguished. After voting
for the use of force in Iraq in October 2002, Mr. Kerry has been all over the
political map. Initially he supported the war and suggested increasing the
number of U.S. troops. When his primary campaign faltered under an assault from
the anti-war left, Mr. Kerry denounced the idea, only to revive it later. Now,
he talks about withdrawing troops beginning next summer. Regarding both Iran and
North Korea, Mr. Kerry has misleadingly tried to depict the president — rather
than the malevolent regimes in both countries — as the major stumbling block to
negotiations. Although Mr. Kerry today faults President Bush for failing to form
a multinational coalition with U.N. support to wage war in Iraq, he opposed the
1991 Gulf War — even though the first President Bush formed such a coalition.
Mr. Kerry claims that Mr. Bush unfairly seeks to characterize him as
anti-defense, noting that Vice President Dick Cheney supported many of the same
budget cuts while serving as defense secretary from 1989-93. But the fact is
that, when Mr. Kerry launched his first Senate campaign 20 years ago at the
height of the Cold War, he called for slashing $200 billion from the defense
budget over four years, including funds for the B1 bomber, the cruise missile,
the Trident submarine and many other programs, and said he was open to even more
cuts. He was opposed to President Reagan's successful efforts to win the Cold
War by supporting anti-Communist forces in Central America. In 1994 — less than
a year after terrorists first bombed the World Trade Center — Mr. Kerry offered
an amendment which would have slashed funding from the defense and intelligence
budgets, including elimination of the Trident D-5 missile program. Seventy
percent of Senate Democrats, including Ted Kennedy, voted against Mr. Kerry's
amendment. It lost by a 75-20 vote.
In the end, it would be hard to imagine a sharper contrast between President
Bush's wartime leadership and the record of John Kerry — who has spent much of
his political career as a stalwart of the left-wing, anti-defense element in the
Democratic Party.