From Time Magazine: The End Of Cowboy Diplomacy:
President George W. Bush came to office pledging to focus on domestic issues and pursue a “humble” foreign policy that would avoid the entanglements of the Bill Clinton years. After Sept. 11, however, the Bush team embarked on a different path, outlining a muscular, idealistic, and unilateralist vision of American power and how to use it, TIME reports. They aimed to lay the foundation for a grand strategy to fight Islamic terrorists and rogue states, by spreading democracy around the world and pre-empting gathering threats before they materialize. And the U.S. wasn’t willing to wait for others to help. The approach fit with Bush’s personal style, his self-professed proclivity to dispense with the nuances of geopolitics and go with his gut. “The Bush Doctrine is actually being defined by action, as opposed to by words,” Bush told Tom Brokaw aboard Air Force One in 2003., outlining a muscular, idealistic, and unilateralist vision of American power and how to use it, TIME reports.
As much as I’d like to agree with anything that is negative about our very negative President, this paragraph just isn’t the whole truth. It says "After Sept. 11, however, the Bush team embarked on a different path, …" That’s way too forgiving. The foreign policy path – the Bush Doctrine, the Unitary Executive, the New Paradigm, the whole thing – was well in the works even as he was saying those campaign lies, [vote getters, not fact]. They were hatched by others in the American Enterprise Institute, the Project for the New American Century, the Vulcans, etc. Bush, on election, turned the government over to these idealogues and off they went.
911 didn’t cause what happened, it facilitated what was going to happen. This is not a small point. In fact, it’s the biggest point of all…
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