Kevin Drum and Matthew Yglesias criticize Dan Drezner who wrote

"In the meantime, check out Rand Beers' interview with Bernard Gwertzman over at the Council on Foreign Relations site. Beers is John Kerry's chief foreign policy advisor, and would likely become national security advisor in a Kerry administration.

Reading the interview, I was disappointed to see zero, zip, nada on democracy promotion. In fact, what was striking about the interview was the general lack of bigthink. On the other hand, there was a great deal of explication about the Kerry team's policy process -- pretty impressive for a campaign.

This leads to an disturbing question. Which is better: a foreign policy with a clearly articulated grand strategy but a f#$%ed-up policy process, or a foreign policy with no articulated grand strategy but a superior policy process? "


They are much much too kind to him. Rather they concede a vital and absurd claim for the sake of argument and still conclude that if Drezner had any sense he would have not trouble deciding that Bush is worse than Kerry. Yglesias is quite explicit "For the sake of argument, let's accept the premise." Drum is brief eloquent but not clear on that point.

I am not criticizing either, but I would like to point out that Drezner's premise is clearly false. Drezner clearly thinks that Bush has a grand strategy of democracy promotion. This is nonsense. Bush has a grand strategy of invading Iraq. Democracy promotion is just the remaining justification now that alleged ties to al Qaeda and WMD have run into some facts. "Democracy" is a powerful word and Bush is clearly eager to use it. However he is also clearly uninterested in promoting democracy. No person of normal intelligence can honestly claim to believe him.

First recall his stated contempt for nation building as stated with reference to Somalia during the presidential debates. Democracy promotion is an especially ambitious form of nation building. Bush has clearly explained that he thinks it is a bad idea.

Recall also the interview/quiz in which he couldn't name the dictator of Pakistan -- Pervez Musharraf. Without recalling the name he said that Musharraf was a general who had brought order to a situation of disorder. Of course, Musharraf overthrew an elected prime minister who was an incompetent war monger but whose government was stable until he refused permission to land to a plane carrying Musharraf. Now praise for a dictator for bringing stability via a coup might be good diplomacy, but it is hard to reconcile with a grand strategy of democracy promotion.

Bush did invade two dictatorships, so what about Afghanistan ? First, he seems virtually completely uninterested in actually promoting democracy now that the war is over. Recall that he most recently asked for 80 billion for Iraq and O for Afghanistan. the 1 billion was added by congress. More to the point, Bush has made it perfectly clear that he was willing to accept continual Taliban rule provided the Taliban broke with Osama Bin Laden. Back to the 9/11 commission report

P 331
"
At the September 13 NSC meeting, when Secretary Powell described Pakistan?s
reply,President Bush led a discussion of an appropriate ultimatum to the
Taliban. He also ordered Secretary Rumsfeld to develop a military plan against
the Taliban.The President wanted the United States to strike the Taliban, step
back,wait to see if they got the message, and hit them hard if they did not.He
made clear that the military should focus on targets that would influence the
Taliban?s behavior."

This is not the position of someone who has a grand strategy of democracy promotion. If Bush cared about democracy in Afghanistan, he would have concluded (before September 11 by the way) that an invasion was necessary. The view that the ultimatum was a sincere ultimatum and that strikes were intended to send a message implies that Bush found continued Taliban rule acceptable provided they satisfied the US concerning al Qaeda. If an extraordinarily repressive regime which massively supported anti US terrorism was, in principle, acceptable, democracy promotion was clearly not a priority. To say that Bush had or has a grand strategy of Democracy promotion is to say that he lied to the 9/11 commission.

Even in Iraq, Bush has no problem with a transition to democracy based on so called caucuses who are nominated by the nominees of the nominee of Bush.

Anyone with any sense knows that, for Bush, "Democracy promotion" is a slogan, the one slogan he can use to defend his decision to invade Iraq. Democracy promotion is not and has never been Bush's strategy.

The question Drezner should ask himself is "which is worse grandiloquent hypocritical rhetoric and a f#$%ed-up policy process, or a foreign policy with no articulated grand strategy but a superior policy process? "