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| Author: | Michael J. Gerson, Roger Hertog Senior Fellow |
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September 19, 2008
Washington Post
It is an odd thing to observe a historical debate on events about which one possesses the knowledge of a participant—something like watching archeologists dig and sift through your living room, proposing their own interpretations of your photos and knickknacks. And it raises a disturbing prospect: That most such debates are conducted by experts possessing great confidence and little knowledge.
This controversy began when ABC’s Charles Gibson asked Sarah Palin to give her view of the Bush doctrine. Palin’s vague answer provoked a dismissive response from Gibson, who defined the doctrine as “anticipatory self-defense.” Charles Krauthammer came to Palin’s defense, arguing that there were four consecutive versions of the Bush doctrine, culminating in the democracy promotion agenda of Bush’s second inaugural address—a description that is closer to the truth. Joe Klein, with absolute and unjustified self-assurance, then insisted, “There was only one Bush doctrine”—the preemption of emerging threats. One frustrated Canadian columnist concluded: “It turns out nobody really knows what the Bush doctrine is.”
But that is not quite true. The Bush doctrine is not the Da Vinci Code. It developed over time, but it developed according to the intentions of a single man. The content of the Bush doctrine directly reflects President Bush’s convictions about the nature of the post-Sept. 11 world. And the form of that doctrine is something I worked directly with him to shape.
In Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President, experts from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution propose a new, nonpartisan Middle East strategy drawing on the lessons of past failures to address both the short-term and long-term challenges to U.S. interests.
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