The Hill News

Andrew J. Bacevich’s publisher should send a copy of his Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War to President Obama, so important is his message and so authoritative his brief. His realistic and reflective thesis is that during the past half century and to the present day the United States has pursued a flawed foreign policy based on a triad of questionable premises â€" the need for global presence, the projection of power, and the need for self-determined interventionism. Rationalized upon varying claimed provocations â€" the Cold War, dominoes of creeping communism in Asia, international terrorism â€" this triad invariably has led us into failed and very costly misadventures. The triad has been propagated by the military officer corps, the permanent foreign policy establishment in government and in think tanks, and their complementary corporate contractor sponsors. It has governed Republican and Democratic administrations, conservative and liberal governments, and has cost the country dearly in lives and treasure. This good versus evil policy â€" like evangelical religious crusades â€" has afflicted humankind in the names of peace and democracy. Packaged as righteous patriotism that makes critics appear weak and faithless, this credo has monopolized modern presidents, most recently inhibiting President Obama’s ability to fix Cleveland and Detroit rather than Baghdad and Kabul, to use Professor Bacevich’s metaphor.

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