Mel Gurtov Critique

The Worst of Times

According to Mel Gurtov, most would say that foreign policy has an erratic temperament. In his insightful book, "Superpower on Crusade: The Bush Doctrine in U.S. Foreign Policy", Gurtov shows that Bush's foreign policy follows his predecessors' policies of regime change, unilateralism, and an expanded military. The big things he believes to be Bush's gift to future presidents are two new highly controversial concepts. These key concepts are preemption and unprecedented secrecy. These two changes are something that Gurtov views as unwise and misleading to the population. Thomas Donnelly, in his book "The Underpinnings of The Bush Doctrine," gives the reader three underlying principles of the Bush doctrine. These three principles are that: the US should take action against "rogue" regimes, we should promote freedom around the world, and lastly, the US is the only country with enough military and economic power to carry out these objectives. Then, he gives explanations why he believes the policy best serves the country. First, we will focus on what Thomas Donnelly believes is the Bush Doctrine.

Thomas Donnelly gives three underlying principles of the Bush Doctrine. His first asserted principle is that although past competitors of the U.S. such as the USSR are out of commission, the US has good reason to heed concern over rogue states such as Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. These states, according to Donnelly, must get the US out of the way before they can have any significant hegemonic power. Because the US is such a powerful country, Iraq, Iran, and North Korea will inevitably flirt with terrorist organizations and pursue WMDs. Furthermore, these states could potentially cooperate with each other. In short, disproportionately large "rogue" states and international movements such as Islamic Radicalism will overshadow conventional nation-states competitors.

His second allegation is that the Bush doctrine supports the expansion of autonomous and democratic states. This is based on the idea that a free Islamic world would be devastated if Iran or Iraq were ever to become nuclear capable. In addition, if North Korea were ever to acquire nuclear weapons, democracy and security in East Asia would become history.

His final claim states that the US is the only country with enough military, economic, and diplomatic power to "fix" the world. In the text, he gives examples of how America has unprecedented power. For instance, all of the world's navies combined together would still be inferior to that of the American Navy. Moreover, the US generates 30% of the total world economic output. These two factors, among many others, give America the responsibility to watch over and "fix" the world.

Fortunately for us, a great man has risen against what the mainstream media has given us. A man who can cast light on the darkness handed to us by the Bush administration. A man...well, you get the picture. That man's name is Mel Gurtov.

As I have stated earlier, he gives two new and highly controversial differences between his predecessors and himself: preemption and secrecy. While these two are quite obvious to anybody who watches the news, Gurtov gives us more information about the illegitimacy of the matter compared to, say, Donnelly.

For instance, Donnelly gives the reader the impression that the United States has done everything it could to avoid war, but if it is necessary, we will go to war. Gurtov counters Donnelly by showing that although previous presidents were willing to engage in diplomatic actions with "evil" leaders, Bush has completely rejected working them on account of their "evilness." This "evilness," according to Bush, is what lost these leaders' right to sovereignty. According to a former Bush State Department official," sovereignty entails obligations. One is not to massacre your own people. Another is not to support terrorism in any way" (sounds like he described Iraq fairly well). He goes on to say that if any government fails in doing this, then governments such as the US are obligated to intervene. Furthermore, he states that these countries, which are harboring terrorists, pose a threat and that precautionary measures must