Shorter Victor Davis Hanson: “Iraq and Afghanistan are both in terrible shape. This clearly vindicates the Republican position on unilateralism and, in consequence, undermines Democratic complaints about Bush foreign policy.”
As we reflect on this particular rhetorical gem, let me stress that I don’t think there is anything wrong with criticizing the lack of clear Democratic policies on Iraq and Afghanistan. But our current administration just isn’t serious about finding solutions to the mess they’ve made. “Stay the course” means punting the hard choices to the next President.
Filed as: Bush, Iraq, Afghanistan, and hackery
Daniel H. Nexon is a Professor at Georgetown University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the School of Foreign Service. His academic work focuses on international-relations theory, power politics, empires and hegemony, and international order. He has also written on the relationship between popular culture and world politics.
He has held fellowships at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and at the Ohio State University's Mershon Center for International Studies. During 2009-2010 he worked in the U.S. Department of Defense as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow. He was the lead editor of International Studies Quarterly from 2014-2018.
He is the author of The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change (Princeton University Press, 2009), which won the International Security Studies Section (ISSS) Best Book Award for 2010, and co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020). His articles have appeared in a lot of places. He is the founder of the The Duck of Minerva, and also blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money.
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