thought experiment

[Michael Eisenstadt]

If i were the newly elected president in 2004 
what would my immediate foreign policy moves be?

Iraq

Afghanistan

North Korea

Israel

would be the 4 big foreign policy issues.

in Afghanistan, stay the course, help hunt down
tough ass Taliban in the mountains, continue 
current Bush policy

North Korea, steady as it goes, continue current
Bush policy

Israel, either commit to trying to force UN presence 
between Israel & Palestinians 

OR

continue to subsidize Israel practicing a 
kind of benign neglect 

Ernest Hemingway's morality theory (in my opinion
the best moral rule, better even than highminded
Kantian morality) is that when confronted by a 
moral decision tree, the harder thing to do is 
the correct one.

this argues for United Nationsizing the 
Israel/Palestinian confrontation despite
Israeli govenment's predictable rejection
of UN presence.

as the Israelis hold the ground militarily, they 
would NOT permit UN into the area by force.

so the good new Dem president would be forced by
these constraints to continue US's longterm policy
of subsidizing Israelis which sucks.

Iraq - that's the biggest of the big foreign 
policy issues.

how does the new president undo the Iraq debacle?

first by stating the it was a mad adventure based
on lies and that he and most Americans now accepted
this.

if US departs all of a sudden, the country will
go into instant civil war and Iraq will wind up
with a new strong man.

so it should be UnitedNationsized as it was
when the inspectors were there before US
invaded the country. if the UN can keep the
peace between Serbs, Croats and other warriors,
they should be able to do it between Kurds,
Sunni, Shia and sundry.

Michel N.