Decision 2004: When it comes to foreign policy, vote wisely

Warlords, whose livelihood is the booming opium industry, will
be guarding polling stations for the coming election. One can guess
that their interests differ somewhat from the average U.N. election
monitor. The majority of the country is seen as far too dangerous
for candidates to even visit, while the leading candidate had to
cancel what would have been his first campaign rally after his
helicopter came under fire during an aborted landing attempt.

Welcome to Afghanistan today.

Despite efforts to remove terrorist elements worldwide, the
Taliban is still largely behind these attacks. All this while Iraq
descends ever deeper into violent disarray, with decreasing
prospects of nation-wide elections. President Bush, unlike
Secretary of State Colin Powell, has a more optimistic assessment,
but that makes sense. After all, Bush has an election of his own
approaching, and the reality might deter voters.

Is this the man who should be calling the shots in Iraq when the
cost of another failure is so high? Perhaps one failure is
enough.

The world of international relations is more complex than Bush
cares to realize. Grand strategies for reshaping a troubled region
are being pursued with a frightening degree of mindlessness while
two more states, Iran and North Korea, are on (or beyond) the edge
of nuclear capability. A war of choice ““ and that’s
arguably what the war in Iraq was ““ subverted the goal of
dismantling al-Qaeda while fueling terrorist movements in Iraq and
across the globe.

The debates surrounding Iraq and al-Qaeda are tremendously
important, but also tremendously ubiquitous. Just as important,
however, and much less publicized, is a discussion on the spread of
nuclear weapons. To counter the threat of long-range nuclear
missiles, the Bush administration has plans to implement an
anti-ballistic missile system, which would theoretically shoot down
incoming missiles.

But not only is it as far-fetched as it sounds, the types of
missiles this system guards against, which pierce outer space
before descent, are not at any real risk of falling into the hands
of terrorists. In a world where commercial airplanes, briefcases,
cargo ships and U-Hauls are the most critical threats to our way of
life, Bush is focusing on the easily deterrable threat of nuclear
missiles.

He is firmly in the pre-Sept. 11 mind-set, where traditional
concerns trump newer, more urgent concerns. The rhetoric about
fighting terrorism is certainly there, but in the case of
proliferation, the thinking is absent.

Furthermore, this policy encourages nuclear proliferation, since
the best way to overcome the anti-ballistic missile system is to
launch more missiles and overwhelm the system. In order to launch
more, one must have more. So strategic rivals like China begin to
build more bombs. North Korea is bound to get edgy when China
begins to burst at the seams with nuclear warheads, and is likely
to pursue their nuclear program even more vigorously. While these
countries race to build more weapons, Japan will be increasingly
tempted to go nuclear, a task it is more than capable of.

Not only does the anti-ballistic missile system work only
poorly, if at all (for instance, computers have a hard time
discerning between nuclear missiles and decoys like Mylar
balloons), but this U.S. policy would instigate an Asian nuclear
arms race.

There are many more topics that could be discussed. For one, the
idea that we have a real coalition in Iraq is absurd given that
very few of the lives lost, and very few dollars spent, come from
outside the United States. I like Poland as much as the next guy,
but they aren’t bearing the sort of burden the United States
is.

There’s also the fact that only a tiny fraction of
Iraq’s reconstruction money, about $1 billion of $18.4
billion, has actually been spent. And there’s the issue of
huge swaths of Iraq that are still totally beyond our control, and
Bush’s reluctance to do much about it until after Nov. 2.

Iran now has missiles capable of reaching Europe, and may soon
have nuclear warheads to load them with. I could go on, but
there’s only so much room in today’s Daily Bruin.

Meanwhile, Sen. John Kerry wrote a book focusing on the new
nature of threats from abroad, such as proliferation and terrorism,
years ago. His approach is distinctly more internationalist, in
that he will reach out to our allies. Kerry’s softer image
abroad, as compared to Bush’s abrasive one, is much more
likely to entice the world to share in the burden.

It should be obvious that Kerry is the better man to garner
support from the United Nations. Kerry also seeks to address the
underlying conditions that fuel terrorism, such as global poverty.
Kerry plans to revive the Middle East peace process. Kerry
understands that, as Americans, we are safer when the world is
united with us against our common enemies.

Nenni is a fourth-year political science student and the
issues director for Bruin Democrats.