going global is the new montra
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/29/opinion/29brooks.html?th=&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=January 29, 2005
The Bushies' New Groove By DAVID BROOKS
......The Bush administration has started its second act, and it is striking how different this one feels. When you ask senior officials to remember the first term, they remember it as a time of war. There was the attack of Sept. 11. There were invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. There was the political war of the 2004 campaign.
That was a time when pieces of things were cast asunder. Senior Bush officials talk about this term as a time when pieces of things will be put back together. There's almost a springlike, postwar mood.
The campaign is over. Afghanistan had its election. Even in Iraq, there will probably not be any more big military assaults like the one in Falluja. Now the Iraqis will be making most of the key decisions, and Americans will, with any luck, do more training and less fighting.
One of the effects of this new attitude is that the administration is less fixated upon the Middle East. There is a much broader global perspective. In candid, sprawling conversations, officials are much quicker to talk about Latin America, and the different challenges presented by the (bad) situation in Venezuela and the (promising) one in Brazil. There is more talk of our relationship with India. There is much more discussion of the need to repel China's efforts to reduce American influence in the Pacific.......