09/02/14
Robert W. Merry
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 |
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