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Originally Published on Monday, June 2, 2003 by the Boston Globe
by Gary Hart
SOMETIME LAST FALL, between the successful overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the notion of ''regime change'' in Iraq, the war on terrorism as it threatened America became a war on all terrorism everywhere. And ''terrorism'' came to include all evil and governments we didn't like. It would be interesting to know how this happened. Even more, it is important to know how this happened, because when the Bush administration decided to go after terrorism everywhere it fundamentally defined a new role for America in the world.
Iraq represented no immediate or unavoidable threat to the United States. We overthrew its government because key Bush administration officials convinced the president it was the next step in the war on terrorism. But they had decided Saddam Hussein must go a full decade before 9/11. The destruction of the World Trade towers, which Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with, simply gave them the excuse to resurrect an old agenda.
But the war on terrorism is now the excuse for America to assume imperial powers and to employ those powers even when our traditional allies oppose our actions. The war on terrorism is fundamentally altering our global policies. We have discarded our half-century reliance on the Atlantic Alliance for collective security. We have marginalized the United Nations at the precise time it should have been empowered to undertake peacemaking roles. And we have alienated key regional powers, including Russia, China, and India, at a time when we should be encouraging them to assume greater responsibilities for regional stability.
All this has transpired in the space of a few months without congressional hearings or review, any comprehensive statement by the administration, serious editorial discussion, or public debate over this new foreign policy. Throughout American history major departures in foreign policy have been the occasion for lively, even contentious debate. This has not been the case as the war on terrorism morphed into the centerpiece of a new imperial foreign policy.
Consequences abound. A nation whose announced national security policy is to eradicate dictators possessing weapons of mass destruction is then immediately faced with North Korea. Indeed, we are faced with a good number of nations fitting this description. Either we mean what we say, or we pick and choose. And if we pick and choose, what standards do we use? Whom do we invade and do
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