dragging out the scapegoats

[Murthy Yenamandra]

Terrance writes:
> Murthy Yenamandra wrote:
> I think people overestimate the foreign policy changes
> > between US administrations - there might be in rhetoric, but in practice
> > the differences are minimal. 
> I disagree. The diffences, in ME policy specifically,  between the
> Bushes and the Clinton Administration are huge. 
> 
> The obvious difference is the fact of the Gulf War during Bush I and the
> commencing "Gulf War II" under Bush II. Clinton, in eight years, didn't
> have a gulf war. 

This is not quite a difference in policy so much as what the policy was
reacting to, i.e. invasion of kuwait in Bush I and non-cooperation
with UNSCOM in Clinton's. So the applications of the policy are
necessarily different because the provocations were, but Clinton in
essence continued the Bush I policy of "containing, but not forcing out"
the iraqi regime and the Reagan policy of balancing iran vs. iraq.
Bombing iraq a little earlier or later doesn't make much of a difference
in where we're now, IMO.

> [...] The policies Presidents put in place, be they war or peace, will
> have more to do with the ME than with their hawkish or dove-like
> dispositions.  

Precisely my point - whether one thinks they're right or wrong, these
policies don't normally change with administrations either.  During one
of the past campaigns I heard a re-broadcast of one of the kennedy-nixon
debates, and frankly I couldn't tell the difference between them,
foreign policy-wise.

> When you read that article, and I think it's a
> good summary, it's shocking to realize just how a little girl from
> California changed foreign policy. 

I don't think the scandal changed the policy - it weakened Clinton for a
while and constrained what he could do, but even otherwise the policy
wouldn't have been much different, IMO, and it isn't now (only more
hands-off). Even whether he could've accomplished more without the
scandal is pretty doubtful, given the long-standing u.s. foreign policy
and the situation in the middle east and in the u.s. congress at that
time.

> My criticism of Clinton is more about missed opportunities, maybe I
> expected too much.

I guess that goes for a lot of people - now of course we have the
advantage of low expectations :-).

Murthy

-- 
Murthy Yenamandra                  mailto:yenamand at cs.umn.edu
Dept of Computer Science           University of Minnesota
"I strive to be brief, but I become obscure." - Horace