Scowcroft v Bush...

Years ago, when I was learning to spell and add number, Brent Scowcroft was the National Security Advisor for George H W Bush. Apparently he has been shunned by the men with whom he closely worked and once mentored in the past because his foreign-policy ground in "realism" conflicted with the Wilsonian approach favored by the pro-war Neo-conservatives, led by Rumsfeld and Cheney.

The New Yorker magazine has a long essay about Scowcroft, the Bushes, Iraq, and America's foreign policy.

Ultimately, the success or failure of our current foreign policy comes down to a single question. Do human beings universally yearn for individual liberty and all the burdens and challenges that go along with it?

While I once believed that notion to be true, a reflection over the past months of Americans who willingly, even eagerly, reject freedom in exchange for the relative ease of government services and "security" forces me to conclude that a significant percentage of human populations do not wish to accept the difficulty of freedom and independence. Thus, the current Wilsonian world view advanced by George Bush is utopian and will fail.

Brent Scowcroft
Iraq
Neo-conservatives