Molly Ivins: Internationist or Isolationist?

[Dudley_DUright]

It's hard to keep up with George W. Bush's shuttles between internationalism and isolationism. You may recall he first ran for office declaring he was against nation- building and other such effete, peacekeeping efforts. None of that do- gooder, building-a-better-world stuff for him -- he couldn't even be bothered to learn the names of the Grecians and Kosovians.

Until Sept. 11, except for staring deep into Vlad Putin's ice-blue eyes and concluding the old KGB shark had soul, Bush evinced little interest in foreign affairs.

Then he literally became an internationalist with a vengeance. Absolutely everybody signed up to help go after al- Qaida in Afghanistan -- offers of help gushed in. Next came the campaign to bring down Saddam Hussein because he had weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear weapons program. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world didn't think Iraq had much in the way of WMD, or at least felt the United Nations inspectors should be given more time to see if they were there.

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In the ultimate "up yours," Bush named John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton is a man so undiplomatic, not to mention so anti-U.N., that half the administration was appalled by the idea. These were the days when mental pygmies outside the administration were dismissed as the "reality-based community." The senior Bush adviser famously quoted by Ron Suskind explained, "We are an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." Gosh, that was an exciting time.

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