Foreign Policy Nincompoops
The Inheritance, David E. Sanger, 2009
Here is a country-by-country account of the disastrous foreign policy under W with particular emphasis on the issue of nuclear proliferation. It is also the account of the ineffectiveness of Condoleezza Rice as NSA and of Colin Powell and his sidekick Richard Armitage at State to control or even counter the influence of the hawkish, unilateralist, regime changer, neocon coalition led by Dick Cheney, with Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others supporting him.
W’s Obsession 
Missing from this account is the family dynamic of the Bushes and why W would have an obsession with Saddam Hussein. (That speculation is left to Sanger’s colleague Maureen Dowd.) Sanger relates a visit to Crawford before W takes office in which W indicates he really wants a minimal foreign policy footprint and absolutely does not believe in regime change or nation building. Incredibly naive for Sanger to buy this drivel.
This reader was not at all surprised with the Iraq focus after 9/11 and feels W telegraphed his obsessions with Sadam during the campaign despite these other isolationist sentiment expressions which were intended to appeal to certain voters. Its hard to imagine that an intelligent reporter like Sanger could have missed all these early signs of the Iraq obsession.
The ark of the story is an indecisive National Security group led by Rice unable to give any advice to W until 9/11 changes the game, giving the shock doctrine guys led by Cheney the opening they need. Their laundry list of regimes needing change include Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela, Burma, Palestine, etc., oh maybe we need to include Afghanistan where the 9/11 attack originated, but we’re not very interested in Afghanistan. Our good allies in this neocon led world order remaking are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan where the terrorists originated and were supported.
Designated Liar 
Colin Powell is compromised beyond redemption by being forced to give the bad intelligence report to the UN and gets his revenge by leaking the story that Iran is so terrorized by W’s “Axis of Evil” speech they secretly ordered a stop to nuclear weapon development while continuing to enrich uranium. The effect of this leak is to freeze European (and Russian and Chinese) support for continuing pressure on Iran to stop their enrichment program.
Nap Time at the White House – Changing of the Guard 
Cheney loses control of foreign policy when Iraq descends into deadly insurgency and W is forced to fire Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz left DOD to head the World Bank til a scandal involving a job for his girl friend removes him from the post. Other neocons left the administration or were hopelessly compromised by their bad predictions of events. Powell and Armitage leave State and the most indecisive National Security Adviser in history becomes the most indecisive Secretary of State in history. Talk about the Peter Principle where in any organization the members rises to their level of incompetence.
A Q Kahn Gold Medal for Successful Nuclear Test 
We now follow Rice and W and they mess up one foreign policy area after another. The intelligence community does its part by missing the A.Q. Kahn network in Pakistan (no doubt with government assistance including planes to deliver material) selling nuclear secrets to anyone with money; missing the Korean built uranium enrichment plant in Syria (They watched this strange building for years until Israel supplies photos of what is inside.); and missing Korea moving ahead until they manage to detonate a small nuclear weapon and join the nuclear club. Intelligence was so fearful after the Iraq WMD disaster that they tried to hide their intelligence showing Iran had stopped its weapon development until Powell got a hold of the information and leaked it.
As if all this is not depressing enough, Sanger rubs it in by printing several hypothetical scenarios of terrorist groups getting a hold of 1) a nuclear weapon which they have not trouble smuggling into the US. They even use UPS to deliver it once it crosses the border; 2) a deadly pneumonia virus Yersenia pestis that is spread during nationwide demonstrations via air horns; (you can substitute Anthrax is you like) and expertise to launch 3) a cyber attack via the internet that shuts down the financial community, blows up the power grid, and disables the military. We can’t defend ourselves from any of these attacks.
And what about conventional power politics and the threat of China? China has realized that a huge nuclear arsenal is useless and is focusing its attention on an expanded navy and missile capability. They shot down one of their own dying satellites to demonstrate they can and the US retaliated by shooting down one of its own. These two “demonstrations” increased the amount of junk in space by more than 10% and a space station nearly collided with a piece of junk recently. They also clearly indicate that each country has the capability of totally disrupting military and civilian communications without which neither the economy nor the military can function. Why don’t we invent a few more ways to end human life on earth as we know it? Good luck Barrack! Pretty sad read.