Bush 41 Grownup Repudiates Bush 43 Foreign Policy

Bush 41 Grownup Repudiates Bush 43 Foreign Policy


Speaking of recognizing that eight years' worth of foreign policy has ended in total failure, an interesting item comes to me from Rice University.
Edward Djerejian is a longtime diplomat and confidant of James A. Baker III, the former secretary of state and consigliere to George H.W. Bush. Djerejian was an outsized figure in GOP foreign-policy circles in its pre-neocon days, having been the only U.S. diplomat to serve as ambassador to both Syria and Israel. After leaving government service in the Clinton administration, he became the founding director of Baker's institute at Rice University, and Colin Powell briefly recalled him to chair a State Dept. panel on public diplomacy during George W. Bush's first term. In other words, he's a grownup.
Djerejian doesn't have much patience with the ultras who drove U.S. foreign policy off a cliff during the younger Bush's term. I haven't read his new book, "Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador's Journey Through the Middle East," but according to a press release I have read, Djerejian reaches over to the right-wing kiddie table and brandishes a switch he cut off the backyard oak tree:
Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz better get out the ointment before that leaves a mark. Djerejian's book appears to be an unsubtle rebuke of George W. Bush's approach to the Middle East and a way of saying the U.S. has a chance to start over. Is Djerejian even bothering to back Sen. John McCain this election cycle? Hmmm.