mission creep or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the imperial presidency

Ross Douthat's column in the New York Times this morning does a smash-up job of conflating the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In spinning an old conservative tale, Douthat attempts to link the Bush and Obama war legacies. What Douthat is arguing is essentially continuity. After Obama failed to be the "white dove" that conservatives claimed he would be, conservatives began to spin the tale that Obama is simply continuing the Bush-era policies, and that those policies were right all along. But the conflation is off the mark, there are changes in policies that distinguish Bush from Obama, and pretty important policy changes at that. The most important change is some form of "competence." A few more to ponder:

Obama officially ended the practice of torture. Bush-era detainee policies are a stain on this country's reputation, and a violation of almost any international law you can think of.

Obama ended our military mission in Iraq. The fiasco that is the Iraq War. Who would have thought that al-Qaeda wouldn't be in Iraq - until we invaded.

Obama took a backseat approach to Libya, allowing NATO to be the principal decision maker. I don't think Bush's hubris would have allowed him to take the backseat to other countries in this conflict.

Obama plans to decrease our military commitment in Afghanistan. I guess we'll see.


In a general sense, Obama didn't follow through with his campaign promises to decrease our foreign presence in the world, he even started a third "war." But Obama's changes in the practice of torture and the end of military combat in Iraq were important steps. Obama's constituents are still waiting on the close of Guantanamo Bay and further plans to decrease the United States' commitment to Afghanistan, and I certainly hope that these will follow what has already happened. At least Obama has distanced himself from Bush-era foreign policy, if only in the name of competence. In general, however, what Douthat points out has some merit. It should at least begin the discussion on United States' foreign policy, and our role in the world. What Douthat writes at the end is especially important, and something I certainly wish he had focused more on, instead of the partisan conflation that he chose to write about:

"The next president won’t have that luxury. In one form or another, the war on terror is likely to continue long after Osama bin Laden’s bones have turned to coral. But we’ll know that the Bush-Obama era is officially over when somebody presents us with the bill"

It's very important that we begin to talk about the fiscal irresponsibility of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, especially when you consider the impact that they had on the debt that has been accrued in the past 10 years.

This is not a Bush-Obama discussion, it is one that should work outside of the partisan framework that Douthat uses. The differences, while significant, are minute compared to the bigger picture of the United States' role in the world.