Mistakes Were Made: America's Five Biggest Foreign-Policy Fiascoes

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Mistakes Were Made: America's Five Biggest Foreign-Policy Fiascoes 09/02/14 Robert W. Merry http://nationalinterest.org/feature/mistakes-were-made-americas-five-biggest-foreign-policy-11160  Foreign Policy, United States There were dubious decisions in the nineteenth century, but it was in the twentieth that misguided adventures were really in vogue.     The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has raised arguments on the part of some, including myself, that this ominous turn of events in the Middle East flows directly from the regional destabilization wrought by President George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq, ruled by a brutal thug of a dictator who, nonetheless, was not part of the threat of jihadist Islam facing the West. Certainly, this presidential decision must rank among the five greatest foreign-policy fiascoes in American history.     That raises a couple questions: What are the other top-five foreign-policy fiascoes? And how should they be ranked within the top-five list?     Before entering into an exploration of that question, perhaps we should establish some definitions. First, we’re talking about presidential decision-making, so we should concentrate on decisions that were volitional, matters of choice and not dictated by the force of events. Second, the result must be significantly negative for the country in historical terms.     Some people might want to include, for example, James K. Polk’s actions designed to maneuver the country into the Mexican War in 1846. Certainly, the war still generates controversy among many Americans. But that war brought a vast expanse of territory into the American union, and that must be viewed as a significant benefit to a restless nation—unless, perhaps, one wants to argue that America should never have become the vibrant, expanding, great-power nation that it became. Though the war still has many critics, few have argued that those acquired lands should be relinquished.     Similarly, some might include James Madison’s decision, under pressure from a lusty Congress, to take his country into the War of 1812. Many have argued that the proximate cause of that war—British impressment of American seamen into the Royal Navy—didn’t really get settled in the peace negotiations at Ghent, and so the war was an unnecessary waste. But students of the war note that the United States gained a great deal by thwarting British plans to take control over the crucial strategic territory around the Great Lakes and into the upper Mississippi Valley. Absent that, America never could have become the nation we know today. Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/feature/mistakes-were-made-americas-five-biggest-foreign-policy-11160