1.30.2005
Bush Signals a Revolution in Foreign Policy (IHT.com)
The Axis of Tyranny
By Ian Bremmer
TOKYO Taken together, George W. Bush's Inaugural Address and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's confirmation testimony form the most important - and revealing - expression of U.S. foreign policy since the president's post-9/11 State of the Union speech. Many believed the president would use the address to bring attention to a domestic agenda and to formulate a chastened foreign policy, reflecting the U.S. experience in Iraq. But Bush outlined the broad objectives, with Rice offering important details, of an even more assertive, internationalist and, in many ways, revolutionary U.S. role in world affairs.
The administration has now broadened the focus of the war on terror, moving beyond the "axis of evil" to what would most appropriately be called an "axis of tyranny." While the axis of evil was less the basis of a new foreign policy than an improvised gut reaction to the horror of 9/11, the president's new formulation represents a carefully considered strategy.
The new policy asserts that there are a handful of regimes whose very existence threatens the national security of the United States and, by extension, Western-style democracies generally. Rice listed a group of six such states - North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, Myanmar and Zimbabwe. The list surprised most analysts, in part because some of those states have never before been singled out by the Bush administration for sustained criticism.
Bush signals a revolution in foreign policy ¶ 10:53
By Ian Bremmer
TOKYO Taken together, George W. Bush's Inaugural Address and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's confirmation testimony form the most important - and revealing - expression of U.S. foreign policy since the president's post-9/11 State of the Union speech. Many believed the president would use the address to bring attention to a domestic agenda and to formulate a chastened foreign policy, reflecting the U.S. experience in Iraq. But Bush outlined the broad objectives, with Rice offering important details, of an even more assertive, internationalist and, in many ways, revolutionary U.S. role in world affairs.
The administration has now broadened the focus of the war on terror, moving beyond the "axis of evil" to what would most appropriately be called an "axis of tyranny." While the axis of evil was less the basis of a new foreign policy than an improvised gut reaction to the horror of 9/11, the president's new formulation represents a carefully considered strategy.
The new policy asserts that there are a handful of regimes whose very existence threatens the national security of the United States and, by extension, Western-style democracies generally. Rice listed a group of six such states - North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Belarus, Myanmar and Zimbabwe. The list surprised most analysts, in part because some of those states have never before been singled out by the Bush administration for sustained criticism.
Bush signals a revolution in foreign policy ¶ 10:53
