Good LAT analysis of Iraq as U.S. for. policy, and world effect

[DeepModem Mom]

IRAQ: ONE YEAR LATER
Strengths, Limits of U.S. Foreign Policy Evident

By Doyle McManus and Sonni Efron, Times Staff Writers


(In the opinion of Graham Allison of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, the article states: "the burden of building Iraq... has sapped U.S. resources from other foreign policy priorities — including the pursuit of terrorists elsewhere.")

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The yearlong experience in Iraq has wrought other far-reaching effects on U.S. foreign policy:

• The war was the first test of what has been called the Bush doctrine, the assertion that the United States may launch a preventive war against any country thought to hold weapons of mass destruction if it consorts with terrorists. But the war also has been the only instance of that rule being invoked; Iran, North Korea and Syria, which all arguably qualify, have not been attacked. As a result, scholars aren't sure whether Iraq was the beginning of a pattern or, as now appears possible, merely the high-water mark of an assertive policy.

• The war put other countries on notice that they had better shape up — and, Bush aides argue, produced an immediate effect on Libya, whose mercurial leader, Col. Moammar Kadafi, announced the end of his efforts to build chemical and nuclear weapons. But the hoped-for "demonstration effect" doesn't seem to have worked on North Korea, Iran or Syria — at least, not yet.

• The war ruptured U.S. relationships with Cold War allies such as Germany and France, ties that only now are being repaired. In the eyes of much of the global public, it made U.S. foreign policy appear aggressive and menacing, a dent in the nation's image that may take years to repair.

• The war accelerated a remarkable — and risky — shift in U.S. policy in the Arab world. For half a century, the United States sought stability in the world's most important oil region by supporting friendly dictators, but now the Bush administration says it has ambitious plans to promote rapid political change leading to democracy — even in conservative monarchies such as Saudi Arabia....

(much more in article)


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-fornpol14mar14,1,7589814.story?coll=la-home-headlines