The downside of democracies at war

Here's a good article by Fred Kaplan about the faults of Bush administration foreign policy. Kaplan's main thesis is that Bush & co. are "Daydream Believers" (the title of Kaplan's book) who allowed themselves to believe in their own made-up notions of how the word works.

It's a good article, but I think there's a lot more to the story - a much deeper, more fundamental explanation for the craziness of Bush policies. Interestingly, the opening of Kaplan's article provides a clue:

When Condoleezza Rice became secretary of state, she hung a portrait of Dean Acheson in her office. As she explained in a Washington Post op-ed piece, Acheson worked in that office at the start of the Cold War, "as America sought to create the world anew." His portrait was to serve as a reminder that we too "live in an extraordinary time," that "the terrain of international politics is shifting beneath our feet," and we must "transform volatile status quos that no longer serve our interests."

Notice that Rice came in with the assumption that the status quo in 2000 was unacceptable. But was it? America was the universally accepted leader of the world; our alliances were secure, the institutions of world commerce worked in our favor, and Clinton's strategy of hunting down terrorists like individual criminals was boring but effective.

Too effective, perhaps. The Clinton era was spectacularly successful domestically and solidly successful in the world arena. Republicans were thus left without a leg to stand on. The Bushies came into office resolved to do something about that - to shake up the status quo in both domestic and foreign policy, not because that status quo wasn't working, but because it had worked under a Democrat.

In domestic policy, this meant a shift away from fiscal responsibility. And in foreign policy, this meant a shift to the now-infamous Bush Doctrine - essentially, a strategy of picking fights around the world.

Basically, in search of permanent Republican electoral dominance, Bush & co. broke the long-standing rule that "politics stops at the water's edge." Probably, it was the end of the Cold War that made Americans feel so secure that Bush was willing to risk discarding this time-honored principle. The Republican's "Enemy #1" went from being the Soviet Union to being the Democratic Part. Americans have heard of "wagging the dog," but I don't think we yet comprehend that Bush's entire foreign policy approach has been a massive exercise in dog-wagging. Seven years later, here we are.

History's classic example of the weakness of democracies at war is Athens' disastrous invasion of Sicily (which led to its catastrophic loss to fascist Sparta). Tellingly, one big reason Athens' hawks argued for the invasion was to gain glory for themselves that would help their electoral prospects at home. The rest is history - Athens got bogged down in an unwinnable occupation, bt kept pouring resources in, until there was nothing left to hold off the Spartans. Game over.

The key to post-Bush foreign policy must be to restore the "water's edge" rule. Even more important than what the next president does on the world stage will be why he or she does it. Serving America's national interest must come before domestic political concerns, and both parties must be convinced of this. If only the Democrats believe in rallying around the national interest, we're screwed.