Devolution

Desperately Seeking Doctrine

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, July 10, 2006; 1:26 PM

All those previous Bush Doctrines guiding American foreign policy are now inoperative, it would appear, leaving the obvious question: What is operative?

Bush foreign policy has morphed dramatically over time. It started off humble and opposed to nation-building. After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the president boldly declared his doctrine of preventative war, vowing to pre-emptively attack emerging threats.

But after the invasion of Iraq failed to reveal any weapons of mass destruction there, the focus shifted to Bush's lofty pledge to fight terror by spreading democracy.

That hasn't worked very well either, however. And now the White House faces an inordinate number of new or growing challenges across the globe without anything remotely like a consistent approach -- or, for that matter, a good sense of who's in charge.

I'd settle for competence. I thought the grownups were in charge now.