Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy

The world is rapidly changing, and our future is increasingly tied to the emergence of a global community. Both our successes and our problems are linked to events in other countries. Our security and our prosperity depend upon our ability to work in concert with other nations to address common problems while maintaining our national defense and jealously guarding our sovereignty.

Americans understand that we are globally interconnected to the point where foreign policy consequences hit close to home. Everything is connected —our jobs, our health, our food supply, the cost of commodities like oil, our education system in comparison to our trading partners, and the value of our currency and savings.

Americans whose main priorities revolve around jobs and family and raising the next generation, need the nation to pursue foreign policies that support, not undermine, our national interests. Too often, what passes for expertise on such matters are short-term, special interests, represented by professional lobbyists who are sent to Washington to argue policy matters outside the earshot of the public. When important legislation comes before the nation, such as CAFTA or the Energy Bill, the special interests are all over it, and the only hope for the average citizen is electing to Congress someone who can put the interests of the many ahead of the few.

So, what foreign policy issues and positions are important to the average American moving forward to the 2006 midterm elections?

The War In Iraq

The war in Iraq was a tragic blunder. We had just toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan and faced a massive re-building effort there to establish a new government. Osama bin Laden was still at large, and we had not destroyed al Qaeda, the group that attacked us on 9/11. At that critical moment, the Bush administration diverted the bulk of our forces from these two vital goals and decided to invade Iraq.

The war in Iraq was an unnecessary conflict. Saddam Hussien was a cruel tyrant, but he was a secularist Arab leader and an enemy of al Qaeda. His regime had been severely weakened by ten years of UN sanctions, and UN weapon inspectors were actively searching his nation for weapons of mass destruction. They found none. Hussein was not a danger to us. Two top administration insiders, Richard Clarke (head of US anti-terrorist work) and Paul O'Neill (former Secretary of the Treasury) both reported that the Bush administration was bent on a war with Iraq even before 9/11 and that Iraq occupied the bulk of their attention throughout the war with Afghanistan.

It is clear to me that the Bush Administration manipulated intelligence data and created unwarranted fear that we were in imminent danger from a WMD attack. In order to settle old scores with Iraq, George W. Bush abused the support Americans gave him after 9/11 to fight terrorism.

The Bush Administration pushed for this war in the face of overwhelming opposition from the international community and deep misgivings here at home. They did not think through the consequences of their actions. It was easy to destroy Saddam's army, but in toppling Saddam and the Baath Party, they destroyed the governmental machinery that had held Iraq together for over three decades. They were unprepared for the collapse and chaos that followed.

The Bush Administration did not plan for the occupation and did not anticipate the resistance that would develop. They put our brave men and women in uniform in an impossible situation. Our soldiers, who are generally unfamiliar with the culture, were forced to take over law enforcement and administrative duties. Our soldiers have become occupiers—a dynamic that has fueled resentment and resistance from the very people our troops were sent to protect.

Al Qaeda saw the opportunity to use the opposition to the invasion in the Muslim world as a recruiting tool. They now have a base in Iraq they didn't have before. Our soldiers have no choice but to kick down doors and blow up homes while pursuing those who attack them. But when they do, they create nationalist opposition.

I agree with Congressman and decorated war hero John Murtha. Our presence in Iraq is the problem; our role as occupiers stimulates nationalist hostility. 80% of the Iraqi people say they want us to leave. 48% say that the use of violence to get us to leave is justified. Even our young soldiers want to come home as soon as possible. A recent Zogby poll reported that 72% of American soldiers serving in Iraq thought the U.S. should leave Iraq within the next year, including 58% of the Marines. Three-quarters of National Guard and Reserve units support withdrawal within 6 months.
Clearly, our young soldiers have become the targets.

Our best option is to renounce any intention of permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq, and then hand over the security responsibility to the Iraqi government on a strict timetable. Iraq needs a stable government and a regional alliance structure that will cooperate to defend the Iraqi state against jihadists. In Afghanistan, our war against bin Laden and the Taliban should be revitalized and brought to a decisive conclusion. We should be encouraging Pakistan to establish law and order in the frontier region.
President Bush talks about completing the mission. How many hundreds of billions of dollars will it take to rebuild Iraq? Frankly, we cannot bring peace and stability to Iraq; the Iraqis must do that themselves.

It's time to redeploy our troops. We should set a timetable and begin to draw down our forces. However, I strongly believe that we must use our phased withdrawal to help broker a deal between the different Iraqi factions and to draw in the international community—the UN and the Muslim states in particular—not as occupiers, but as mediators and peacekeepers during the withdrawal process. We must also renounce any intention toward a permanent military presence in Iraq. Only the Iraqis can re-build their nation—and they will not be able to it so long as we are there.

What I will do

In Congress, I will work to restore accountability for effective foreign policy and government at the federal level, including policies that enhance American competitiveness. The American people are fed up with political posturing, which closes off the creative problem-solving process, and has produced little in the past five years except protracted division and rancor.

It is time for new leaders in Washington who are willing to face our challenges at home and abroad and work to solve our problems with integrity, vision and compassion so that we can create a better world and a better future for ourselves and our children.

http://www.jerrymcnerney.org/issues/foreignpolicy.asp