Understanding Senator Chafee’s Thinking on Foreign Policy, Israel, and John Bolton

After the first three Republican Senate debates, Senator Lincoln Chafee left voters with three seemingly incompatible views of foreign policy…

Senator Chafee’s statements in the fourth debate and subsequent actions, especially the decision to delay the confirmation of John Bolton because of his disagreement with American policy towards Israel, allows us to pull this all together.
Start with the second statement above. Senator Chafee is not issuing the warning against entanglements as an endorsement of a minimalist foreign policy, in the way that the warning has historically been understood. In fact, over the course of the campaign, the Senator has made it clear that he favors of a great number of foreign entanglements.
Let’s compare the entanglements that Senator Chafee favors to ones he opposes. We know that Senator Chafee opposed the War in Iraq; you can make a perfectly valid case that Iraq has proven that the US was not ready for an entanglement of that scale, so there is no problem with the Senator’s position here.
But we also know that Senator Chafee had an initial instinctive ambivalence against action in Afghanistan. We know that the Senator was one of just three to oppose sanctions against Syria for its continuing support of terrorism, yet he wants America to invest itself in putting strong diplomatic pressure on Israel. You can’t apply the kind of diplomatic pressure the Senator favors without being strongly entangled in the world. We know that Senator Chafee favors more negotiations with Syria and Iran, which can be fairly described as further entanglements. We know that the Senator was willing to tangle himself up with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela to take his low-cost oil. And it is hard to see how the US can play enough of role in reducing poverty in Mexico to impact illegal immigration into the United States, as the Senator has suggested, without a willingness to become entangled in that country’s affairs.
An unfortunate pattern emerges. The Senator seems biased against “entanglements” when they support an ally facing an armed threat (Israel) or take the battle to an adversary (Syria, Afghanistan), while he embraces entanglements that are of the nature of “global social work” or quests for — dare I use the word — appeasement of adversaries.
With this narrow meaning of “entanglement” understood, the different ideas expressed by Senator Chafee do fit together into a coherent whole. Change the third principle expressed by the Senator to “America should be one of the two strongest countries in a peaceful world”, and you have a pretty good description of the foreign policy of President Jimmy Carter, a policy that was built on the assumption that the existence of the United States somehow frightened leaders that might otherwise be reasonable into becoming hard-line expansionists. History quickly revealed this assumption to be wrong. The existence of the US was the check on Communist expansion, not the source of it. And the policies that flowed from the Carter administration — heavy-pressure-on-allies/nothing-more-than-talk-with-adversaries to prove how “nice” we were — did nothing to mellow the totalitarian drive for domination.
Now, the source of instability in the world is not a Communist bloc, but the dictatorships, oligarchies and terrorist networks that have been spawned in failed states and are controlled by leaders all-too-comfortable with the use of violence for expanding their political power. But the nature of dictatorship really hasn’t changed in the last 25 years. Dictators today, just like the dictators of the past, are willing to use violence as an instrument of policy because of something intrinsic to themselves, not because of a reaction to the policies of the United States.
If the United States follows the path that Senator Chafee seems to be suggesting — punishing allies and engaging in endless talk with adversaries while signaling that any action against adversaries is off-the-table, because it is too “entangling” — the result will be an invitation to oligarchs and warlords to step-up their violent push against us. This is not an invitation that will promote peace, or even mere stability, for anyone.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
3 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Greg
Greg
18 years ago

Can we get an “Understanding Senator Chafee’s Thinking on his own campaign”?:
From the Boston Globe, by AP reporter M.L. Johnson:
Chafee shows uncharacteristic toughness in R.I. Senate race
“Chafee has spoken proudly in the past of his ability to run positive campaigns — but he had no primary during his first Senate run in 2000 and his Democratic opponents were reluctant to attack him too harshly so soon after his father, Sen. John Chafee, died in 1999.
The senator said he would like to stay positive, but campaign staff and consultants have persuaded him negative spots are needed to win. He said he particularly disliked one ad that said Laffey increased government spending in Cranston “and raised taxes again and again and again.” Cranston was near bankruptcy when Laffey took office in 2003.”

Rino Cooke
Rino Cooke
18 years ago

Didn’t Steve Laffety also steal documents from a former employer then lied about it until a court order forced him to turn them over? Shameful. Apparently this is the kind of leadership that is suited for Rhode Island. We do have more corruption that any other state so he fits right in.
Rinny

Greg
Greg
18 years ago

“Didn’t Steve Laffety also steal documents from a former employer then lied about it until a court order forced him to turn them over?”
GO RINO! Spread the manure on thick. It won’t matter. Your hapless candidate has already beaten himself with this endless NASTY and FALSE campaigning. Even Chafee himself has been quotes as saying he regrets it, but you sychophants just keep shoveling.
No, don’t stop. It’s fun to watch.

Show your support for Anchor Rising with a 25-cent-per-day subscription.