Conservatives are "beside themselves with fury" over Bush's Foreign Policy

[kpete]

Conservative Anger Grows Over Bush's Foreign Policy

By Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 19, 2006; A01

At a moment when his conservative coalition is already under strain over domestic policy, President Bush is facing a new and swiftly building backlash on the right over his handling of foreign affairs.

Conservative intellectuals and commentators who once lauded Bush for what they saw as a willingness to aggressively confront threats and advance U.S. interests said in interviews that they perceive timidity and confusion about long-standing problems including Iran and North Korea, as well as urgent new ones such as the latest crisis between Israel and Hezbollah.

"It is Topic A of every single conversation," said Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank that has had strong influence in staffing the administration and shaping its ideas. "I don't have a friend in the administration, on Capitol Hill or any part of the conservative foreign policy establishment who is not beside themselves with fury at the administration."

Conservatives complain that the United States is hunkered down in Iraq without enough troops or a strategy to crush the insurgency. They see autocrats in Egypt and Russia cracking down on dissenters with scant comment from Washington, North Korea firing missiles without consequence, and Iran playing for time to develop nuclear weapons while the Bush administration engages in fruitless diplomacy with European allies. They believe that a perception that the administration is weak and without options is emboldening Syria and Iran and the Hezbollah radicals they help sponsor in Lebanon.

more at:
http://www.rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.washingtonpost.com%2Fwp-dyn%2Fcontent%2Farticle%2F2006%2F07%2F18%2FAR2006071801373_pf.html

[tabasco]

1. I thought conservatives believed in avoiding foreign entanglements.

Oh I forgot - - 9-11 changed everything.

[Jacobin]

2. You're right. They are not conservatives.

But they are upset that their fantasy of global domination through techno-pushbutton-war is running up against reality, and so they are blaming the loon they elevated to president, rather than their own naivete'.

[leftyladyfrommo]

3. Does Bush even have a foreighn policy? I just see an empty

hole where our foreign policy ought to be.

[EFerrari]

10. Our foreign policy is Line the Pockets of Bush Cronies. n/t

[gratuitous]

4. I don't believe it for a second

Not the story; I'm sure it's a reliable bit of reportage. But the idea that the conservative foreign policy establishment is beside itself with fury is ridiculous. They've gotten everything they wanted in the last five years -- it just didn't work itself out into their demented dreams of an American empire. If they're truly furious, they should start with the person in the mirror, because sensible and sane people have known for decades that the outcome of their dark policies would be exactly what we're seeing now.

The hawkish impulse is always there, and for the most part we've avoided acting it out or blunted it. But they've had everything they've ever wanted for the last five years, and the world is far worse off now than it has been since probably spring 1945. Well done, boys. And now you're "beside yourselves with fury"? Too fucking bad -- we warned you, assholes, and got called traitors for our trouble.

We're going to get your greedy, bloodstained fingers off the levers of power in this country, even if we have to snap them off one by one. It's not going to be fun, it's going to be a grim task, but it has to be done if we're going to get our country back. And it will be up to us "traitors" to put things back together again so you can once again fantasize about dreams of projected power.

[C_U_L8R]

5. Yeah right

more republican bluster.. if they are so beside themselves then lets see some deeds !!

The last thing this poor planet needs is more republican hot air.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. The poor neo-cons! Not enough war for them! (Well, not really for them,

but for your families...since they and theirs will not do any of the fighting!)

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. Why can't you just post a link to the WP article...

...without putting me through some godawful RawStory frame-based click-whore gibberish? I don't need a fucking RawStory advert frame, especially on an article that RawStory had nothing to do with.

Here's a link to the WP piece, for those not wishing to be subjected to such half-mad HTML abuse:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071801373_pf.html

[DanCa]

8. I hate to say I told you so

But when you hire a "C" student you takes your chances.

[Cosmocat]

9. You know ...

it is one of COUNTLESS hypocracies from the right ... The bashing during the 90s about how liberals were just "intellectuals" who were removed from real world realities and common sense ...

Meanwhile, when these fools foisted this clown to the presidency in 2000, they brought with him a complete crew of craven intellectuals who have a totally unamerican, and dangerously aggressive and one dimensional, foreign policy that devolves international relations to the point of rendering it completely useless ...

[Solly Mack]

11. Let me get this straight. They're mad now over a policy they cheered

a couple of weeks ago?


"Conservatives complain that the United States is hunkered down in Iraq without enough troops or a strategy to crush the insurgency."


Uh, Bush went into Iraq without enough troops...strategically speaking...and only speaking of strategy...because invading Iraq was wrong then and it's wrong now and it'll be wrong tomorrow. Furthermore - Generals told him he didn't have enough troops and he ignored them..and there was a purge at the Pentagon of those who disagreed with Bush/Cheney/Rummy.

Yet these same "mad conservatives" cheered all of that and the invasion...and now they're mad about it?

Bite me.

"They see autocrats in Egypt and Russia cracking down on dissenters with scant comment from Washington"

LOL Hello!!!!?????!!!! Patriot Act/NYT = treason/ spying on anti-war protesters...America does the exact same thing....and these same "mad conservatives" cheered that and now they're mad because Bush doesn't do anything about it in other countries?

Bite me.

Hypocrisy. America exceptionalism.Arrogance.

Fuck those "mad conservatives" and the horse they rode in on

He is their Boy Blunder...they can't distance themselves now from Bush. Bush is everything they wanted....well, they got him. They don't get to pretend now that, somehow, Bush veered off course... Bush is on the exact same course he's always been on...the exact same course these same "mad conservatives" cheered just a couple of weeks ago.