Did Bush Pursue a Neoconservative Foreign Policy? (original) (raw)

Assessing George W. Bush's Legacy, 2010

Abstract

When Michelle Obama met Sarah Brown, the wife of the British prime minister, the First Lady gave, as a gift to Sarah’s two sons, a $15 model of Marine One, the presidential helicopter. According to one commentator, better tokens of esteem would have been “Action man models of her husband smiting the evil forces of neoconservatism.”1 The advent of the Obama presidency in January 2009 was widely expected to be a repudiation of the foreign policy of his predecessor. There was widespread anticipation in America and abroad that Bush’s failures, which were conventionally attributed to neoconservative influence, would be put right; the United States would “reset” relationships “crashed” by Bush’s war on terror; multilateralism would replace unilateralism; international law would be taken seriously again; extraordinary rendition would end and Guantanamo Bay would be closed; climate change would be prioritized; and ideology and idealism in foreign policy would be swapped for realism and pragmatism. In sum the deneoconization of foreign policy would restore America’s legitimacy as a force for good in the world.

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