The Fields Report

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GOOD READS

What turned Brent Scowcroft against the Bush Administration?

Moral Hazard
How conservatism encourages nuclear terrorism.

by Robert McNamara

It is time for the United States to cease its Cold War-style reliance on nuclear weapons as a foreign-policy tool. Current U.S. nuclear weapons policy is immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.

How Bush Won

Is it really the case that, as the British tabloid the Daily Mirror famously put it, nearly 60 million Americans were simply too “dumb” to understand the implications of reelecting George W. Bush? It seems so...But as appealing as it is, folly does not constitute a sufficient explanation of the 2004 election.

Inside the Committee that Runs the World

September 11, 2001, was a catalytic event that revealed the core character of the Bush administration’s national security team. As rival factions fought for the president’s ear, the transformative ideals espoused by the neocons gained ascendancy—triggering a rift that has split the Republican foreign-policy establishment to its foundations.

The Right's Assault on Kofi Annan

The neoconservative and paleoconservative assault on Kofi Annan and the UN has been like a slightly slower version of the Swift Boat veterans' campaign against Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. Listening to the cable pundits, you would never suspect that there is no proof at this point that Annan, or indeed anyone else at the UN, did anything wrong.

Think Again: Bush’s Foreign Policy

Not since Richard Nixon’s conduct of the war in Vietnam has a U.S. president’s foreign policy so polarized the country—and the world. Yet as controversial as George W. Bush’s policies have been, they are not as radical a departure from his predecessors as both critics and supporters proclaim. Instead, the real weaknesses of the president’s foreign policy lie in its contradictions: Blinded by moral clarity and hamstrung by its enormous military strength, the United States needs to rebalance means with ends if it wants to forge a truly effective grand strategy.

Will Iran Be Next?

Soldiers, spies, and diplomats conduct a classic Pentagon war game—with sobering results.

The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters
A PIPA/KN Study

Bush's Lost Year

By deciding to invade Iraq, the Bush Administration decided not to do many other things: not to reconstruct Afghanistan, not to deal with North Korea and Iran, and not to wage an effective war on terror. An inventory of opportunities lost.

Iran: Time for a New Approach

Council on Foreign Relations

The lack of sustained engagement with Iran harms American interests, and direct dialogue with Tehran on specific areas of mutual concern should be pursued.

The Misunderestimated Man: How Bush chose stupidity

As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he's something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool.

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GOOD STUFF

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

[1:25 PM] In the run up to Gulf War II, I put my money on Saddam unilaterally destroying his weapons of mass destruction to avert war and have sanctions lifted, while maintaining his capacity to reconstitute any WMD programs in the future. Donald Rumsfeld is now coming around to the conclusion that Saddam may have destroyed any unconventional weapons before the war. So Fields Report may have in fact been correct. However, the administration as many put it, wouldn’t take ‘yes’ for an answer as UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors continued to come up empty—just like U.S. forces are now, even with the run of the country. The only miscalculation of my part was inevitability of war (so wouldn’t that be a push and I get my bet back?).

Secretary Rumsfeld made his remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations yesterday. Check out a transcript here.

# posted 1:29 PM

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