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America's confrontation with Iran.

Article Excerpt
The Bush Doctrine, in line with the ideas of the neo-conservatives, suggests America's power, especially military power, is omnipotent, and that its values and institutions are universally desired and universally applicable; hence America's destiny--after the 9/ 11 event--requires it to use this immense power, pre-emptively and unilaterally if necessary, to reshape the world in America's image. The neocons themselves called it a vision for a New American Century. The US has used hard power recently in Afghanistan and Iraq, and many think Iran is the next target.

For a time, to many people, this radical new vision seemed right. Not any more. When things first went wrong in Iraq, its supporters said that the Bush Doctrine's good ideas had been let down by bad implementation. Now it is clear that the problems in Iraq and in West Asia are not ones of implementation but of conception. The Bush Doctrine has failed its test.

Since it became a major power more than a century ago, America has never related to other great powers as a cooperative equal. It has always seen others either as followers or as adversaries. To get it right, America will have to find a way to resolve this challenge, and that means it will have to change in fundamental ways how it thinks about itself and the world. The US frequently uses military force to prevent any possible future conflicts. However, rarely is the soft power technique used before resorting to military force. The Bush Administration and the neo-cons think military force is an appropriate weapon for the US to use against enemies that may develop nukes. The US has said publicly that it will not permit Iran to develop such weapons.

This article offers a balanced view. It argues that soft power is much more useful and progressive than resorting directly to brute force, and that the US must use soft power to deal with Iran's nuclear issue. This would make the US look better in the eyes of the rest of the world. It is time that the US became more aware of this reality.

As the world's sole superpower, with almost unrivalled economic and military dominance, the United States must make critical choices about the forms of power it employs to achieve its foreign policy objectives. Foreign policy experts are increasingly arguing that America urgently needs a new and coherent foreign policy, and suggesting what its foreign policy goals should be in the current world of globalisation.

For much of the past two decades, the United States has been relatively successful in imposing neo-liberal reforms on oil-rich nations of the "South" in order to open up their economies and resources to multinational energy companies. In countries where neo-liberal reforms were not possible, or proved insufficient, such as in Iraq and Colombia, US military intervention occurred in conjunction with economic intervention. Under President George W. Bush, the historic links between US energy policy and US foreign policy became even more pronounced, and it should be noted that the United States has been steadily expanding its control of overseas territories since the turn of the 20th century, though most Americans don't think of their government as an "empire". Now, with over 700 military bases worldwide, the US holds sway over an area that dwarfs the great empires of histories.

Leading American foreign policy expert Dr Ivan Eland in his book, The Empire Has No Clothes: US Foreign Policy Exposed, (1) delivers a penetrating argument to liberals, conservatives and all Americans, exposing the imperial nature of interventionist US policy and advocating a return to the Founding Fathers' vision of military restraint overseas.

Because of its enormous hardpower capabilities, US policy-makers have been conscious of the fact that the United States potentially can, if it chooses, significantly influence its external environment. And possession of this power has often given rise to the desire to use it.(2)

Garry Leach, editor of Columbia Journal, observes: (3)

"The Bush Administration's unilat- eralist and militaristic foreign policy has made evident the cracks in the new world order....

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