Steve Kubby: Difference between revisions

* Return to America's traditional non-interventionist foreign policy

The foreign policy issue foremost in most Americans' minds is, of course, the war on Iraq. I oppose it. I opposed it when it was proposed, I opposed it when it began, and I oppose it now. If the American people put me in the White House, I'll end it immediately with a unilateral and unconditional withdrawal of US forces from that country, as quickly as can be done consistent with the safety of the troops.

The war on Iraq, however, is only a symptom of a more deep-seated problem. Especially since World War Two, but even before that -- among other places in the Philippines circa the beginning of the 20th century -- America has dramatically broken with the foreign policy advocated by our founding fathers.

That policy, as President Thomas Jefferson summarized it, was "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none." Even when President James Monroe -- the last American executive whose political career stretched back to the Revolution -- promulgated his "Monroe Doctrine," asserting an American protective interest in the Western Hemisphere, he did so cautioning that "in the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken part, nor does it comport with our policy, so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded, or seriously menaced that we resent injuries, or make preparations for our defense."

We've learned -- or should have learned -- that "nation-building" and "international peacekeeping" don't work. At their best, they bind us to an expensive and dangerous policy of "guaranteeing the security" of other nations, as we've done with various European and Pacific Rim nations for half a century now at the cost of trillions of dollars and thousands of American lives. At their worst, they fan the anti-American animosities that culminate in horrors like the attacks of September 11th, 2001.

US withdrawal from Iraq would probably result in a quicker -- and less bloody -- resolution than a continued US presence would. The US is trying to hold together three "natural" countries against their will.

When the US leaves, the Kurdish north will probably secede, the Shiite south will probably become (de facto or de jure) a part of a Greater Iran, and the central region will probably continue to thrash around for a while between a Sunni/Wahabe Islamist state or a Ba'athist state (possibly under Syrian tutelage).

Those were the default options before Iraq began being held together -- first under western colonialism and then under Ba'athist nationalism -- that's what will probably happen if the US leaves tomorrow, and that's what will probably happen if the US leaves ten years from now. The real question is how many Americans get to die before the US acquiesces in the inevitable, and how many Iraqis get to die in the higher plateau of terror that the occupation is maintaining by its presence before they're left to settle things for themselves.

I won't "redeploy" American troops from the hottest combat zones of the Middle East and Central Asia and position them to continue fighting other people's wars. I'll bring them home.

Around the world -- from Germany to South Korea to Colombia -- I'll notify our allies that they must henceforth take responsibility for their own defenses, and set timelines for orderly, but complete, withdrawal of US troops from the more than 100 countries where they are currently stationed.

As Commander in Chief of America's armed forces, I'll set those forces to their legitimate job of defending the United States, and take them off the job of pursuing nebulous "national interests" abroad. Our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines will once again proudly fulfill their duty of defending America instead of serving -- and suffering from -- a misguided vision of international hegemony.

In the course of this dramatic shift back to a sane foreign policy, we stand only to benefit. We'll have a more solid, more sound national defense at a much lower cost to the taxpayer. We'll have friendly relations with more people in more places, and hostile relations with fewer people in fewer places. The swamp of international hostility will be drained instead of stirred, so that fanatics like al Qaeda have no place to grow their cultures of hatred and violence. We'll be less exposed to attack, and better positioned to benefit from trade and commerce with a world no longer suspicious and frightened of us.