"I must confess to being puzzled by the amazing spread of the idea that the Bush Doctrine has indeed failed the test of Iraq. After all, Iraq has been liberated from one of the worst tyrants in the Middle East; three elections have been held; a decent constitution has been written; a government is in place; and previously unimaginable liberties are being enjoyed. By what bizarre calculus does all this add up to failure? And by what even stranger logic is failure to be read into the fact that the forces opposed to democratization are fighting back with all their might?"
"I suggest you read the article. "
Well, you are right I didn't read it but I will, and maybe it will change my mind. But aside from Iraq and even Lebanon I see Bush as not fully committed to his "with us or with the terrorists" stand.
CAIR, etc are with the terrorists, but they are allowed to carry on. Mike Wallace, OBVIOUSLY with the terrorists, but he is not condemned. The leakers to and the leak printers at the NY Times, etc. continue unscathed as they provide true aid to the terrorists. And, needless to say, young men from the terrorist harboring states of the world continue to arrive in droves, as we can see from the missing 11 Egyptians, under false pretenses and bound for who really knows where and who really knows what.
All these things to me should be part of the Bush doctrine, but they are not. I cannot think of any politician who has the nerve to make them part of a Bush Doctrine Part Deux.
As for Israel, it is hard to think they are really serious, I'd like to see them at least instate the death penalty if for no other reason to take the jihadis off the table as "hostages". What, only Eichman deserved to die? Everybody else can live out their days on the Israeli taxpayer's dime?
Time will tell and I can only suppose our civilization will be given many more opportunities to really get serious about the Islamofacists who would kill or subjagate us all. It's just too bad a lot of people will have to die in the process.
I love President Bush, I voted for him twice, but to a large extent I think he has been unrealistic about our enemy and too optimistic about what will work. He really doesn't want to crush the Islamic world and I don't think anything else will really get the job done.
So maybe it's not an ex-doctrine, maybe it was a half-baked doctrine from the start.