"I CAN'T BELIEVE ITS NOT A FOREIGN POLICY" ISN'T GOING TO CUT IT


The uptick in the U.S. economy, coming in spite of the Bushies disastrous fiscal policy, has blunted the edge of the Dems domestic attacks against Bush, and as a result makes the need to close the national security gap between the president and the Dems all the more important.


Unfortunately, over 2 years after 9/11, and over 1 year from the debacle of the 2002 elections, the Democrats have failed to seriously address the problem. The party is still dominated by three camps. First, there are the Jeffersonian isolationists (dominant among the grassroots partisans of the cultural left) who view the whole Iraq project through the lens of oil and Vietnam. Second, there are the globalists (dominant among the party's foreign policy elite) who view the success of U.S. foreign policy through the lens of world opinions. Finally, and most strongly, there are the agnostic partisans (dominant among the party leadership) who continue to see foreign policy as a distraction from domestic issues and view Iraq solely through the lens of its impact on Bush's reelection.


The result has been for the Democrats to treat foreign policy and national security issues primarily as a political problem to be managed. Thus, while the true believers of the cultural left have latched on Dean, the party elite, rather than attempting to formulate a coherent foreign policy alternative to Bush, has sought out a candidate - first Kerry, and now Clark - that through their personal biography appears to present a foreign policy alternative. Both, however have been plagued by positions on Iraq that are consistent only in their criticism of Bush.


At the end of the day, the mirage of a foreign policy agenda will not substitute for the real thing....