Krauthammer on US Foreign Policy and NeoCon Philosophy

A thoughtful and educational piece on US foreign policy in recent history.

Over the past 15 years, each of the three major American schools of foreign policy--realism, liberal internationalism and neoconservatism--has taken its turn at running things.

On the Clinton administration's Liberal Internationalism:

It is hard to be charitable in assessing the record. Liberal internationalism's one major achievement in those years--saving the Muslims in the Balkans and creating conditions for their possible peaceful integration into Europe--was achieved, ironically, in defiance of its own major principle. It lacked what liberal internationalists incessantly claim is the sine qua non of legitimacy: the approval of the U.N. Security Council.

On the current administration:

The remarkable fact that the Bush doctrine is, essentially, a synonym for neoconservative foreign policy marks neoconservatism's own transition from a position of dissidence, which it occupied during the first Bush administration and the Clinton years, to governance. Neoconservative foreign policy, one might say, has reached maturity.

A long but fascinating read, IMHO.