U.S. president George W. Bush's State of the Union address was a disappointment. Hard-line foreign policies that over the last few years have exacerbated conflict around the world are to be maintained. Domestic U.S. policy is going to remain thickly partisan instead of being about national unity.
This time again the keywords to his foreign policy are "spreading democracy" and "war on terrorism." Together with Syria, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, and Iran, he defined North Korea as an undemocratic nation in need of freedom. It was less dramatic than comments about "axis of evil," "criminal regime," and "the world's most dangerous nations" in earlier State of the Union addresses, but the hostility is unchanged. He did not even mention the six party talks. Middle East policy is growing ever more contradictory, but he sounded more stubborn about it. It was a self-contradiction to have demanded that Hamas, which just won Palestine's general election, to disarm. It was also contradictory to call Iran a nation "held hostage by a small clerical elite" when it, too, has a democratically elected government.
His same old dichotomy of good and evil both distorts reality to one's liking and intensifies mutual hostility. The formula that has America as "good" and its adversaries as "evil" is not persuasive at all to most of the world's occupants. Finally it obstructs Bush's view and makes issues harder to resolve, as can be seen in the way he justifies the invasion and occupation of Iraq and labels calls for a withdraw as defeatism and isolationism. He cited "radical Islam" as the enemy, but those elements would not be as strong as they are now if not for the illegal invasion of Iraq.
About America, Bush said "Our greatness is not measured in power or luxuries, but by who we are and how we treat one another." If he would only apply that directly to U.S. foreign policy, the world would be a far more peaceful place.
The Hankyoreh, 2 February 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
[Editorial] Bush's Disappointing State of the Union Address |
