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Middle East Review of International Affairs
The Bush Doctrine: Selective Engagement in the Middle East
by Kenneth W. Stein
*
Editor's Note
This article's thesis is that the Bush Doctrine is part of a broader bipartisan American foreign policy, "Selective Engagement," emerging since the Cold War's end. U.S. willingness to be involved abroad are based on whether such an effort is in the national interest, can be shared with a coalition, costs acceptable amounts of money and potential casualties, and will leave the region better off. It discusses the Bush administration's Middle East policy in this context, especially regarding the move toward higher degrees of apparent involvement in coping with the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
Introduction
During the 2000 American presidential election campaign, George W. Bush gave one foreign policy address. Not unexpectedly, domestic priorities prevailed at his Administration's outset: education reform, the environment, private school vouchers, faith-based initiatives, energy sources and production, creation of prescription drug benefits, tax relief, an economic stimulus package, health care, values, ethics, and propounding a philosophy of "compassion in government."
Domestic issues which contained foreign policy components--such as illegal drugs, trade questions, terrorism prevention, immigration concerns, energy matters, and currency stability-- also had some priority, but only if they affected the lives and immediate economic or physical well-being of Americans. Consequently, during his first months in office, Bush was chided not for his lack of interest in foreign affairs but lack of knowledge about the world. In a tongue-in-cheek humor, the Economist magazine showed a picture of an American astronaut on the moon with the caption, "Mr. Bush goes to Europe." An editorial within noted that "many Europeans believe that he is uninterested in cooperation...that he had appointed a host of officials who reject multilateralism." It concluded, however, that even without a common Soviet enemy, Europe and America had "common values and a common interest in upholding them."
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Endnotes
Note *: Professor Kenneth W. Stein is the William E. Schatten Professor of Contemporary Middle Eastern History, Political Science and Israeli Studies at Emory University. He is author of Heroic Diplomacy: Sadat, Kissinger, Carter, Begin and the Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace (1999) and The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 (1984) and co-author of Making Peace Between Arabs and Israelis-Lessons From Fifty Years of Negotiating Experience (1991). Different versions of this article appeared in German in International Politik, 2002; and in French in Politique Etrangere, January-March 2002, pp. 149-171. Back