http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-korb11feb11,1,1380024.storyCOMMENTARY By Lawrence Korb, Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior advisor to the Center for Defense Information, was assistant secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration.
President Bush's foreign policy is often compared with that of Ronald Reagan. His reference to Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union address, for example, is often likened to Reagan's branding of the Soviet Union as the "evil empire." Bush's support for a national missile defense system and his eagerness to withdraw from the ABM treaty were old Reagan favorites as well.
Leaving aside the issue of whether the comparison of Bush with Reagan is apt (having worked for Reagan, I believe it is overblown), if Bush really wants to emulate Reagan, he ought to follow the former president's approach to handling foreign policy disasters. <snip>
President Bush, on the other hand, wants his nine-member commission that will investigate the alleged intelligence failures in Iraq to take more than a year to report and avoid the critical question of whether his administration hyped the intelligence to gain support for the war.
Moreover, it will not simply examine the reasons for the disaster in Iraq but also how the intelligence community has dealt with North Korea, Iran and Libya. This is far too long a time and too broad a mandate. America's credibility and our national security are in imminent danger because of Bush's handling of the invasion of Iraq.
If Reagan could deal with Lebanon and Iran-Contra within a few months, surely Bush could have done the same with Iraq. By choosing not to do so, Bush has shown himself unworthy to claim the Reagan mantle.
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