The Right should oppose Bush's War on Terror

[T_i_B]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-1044541,00.html

Only the French Gaullists seem to understand the danger. The Right outside America risks becoming permanently associated in the public mind with a foreign policy that may have only another six months to live — or which (should this President’s mandate be renewed in November) may attain the perpetual infamy of the Vietnam conflict. What might the long-term electoral consequences for conservative parties outside America be, if we fail to respond to our own supporters’ anxiety about the state of permanent war America seems determined to help al-Qaeda to foist on the next generation?

I am worried about the failure of the British, the Australian and the European Right — the Right almost everywhere but in France — to take on board the public’s resistance to America’s new foreign and military policy. People really do not like it.

Conservative politicians have not understood how stubbornly unsaleable is President Bush’s doctrine of regime change. Fear of Washington’s appetite for “pre-emptive intervention” in sovereign nations is being harvested by politicians on the Left because the Right is failing to cast its nets in these waters. We seem unable to respond to the public anger staring us in the face.

Why does the simplistic philosophy which underpins President Bush’s, Prime Minister Sharon’s and Tony Blair’s War on Terror go unchallenged by Tories whose sense of history should teach us that things are never that simple? Why are conservative parties across Europe failing to register the way an immature US-led foreign and defence doctrine is scaring their own natural supporters? There is no reason why America’s new kick-ass approach should worry only the Left. There are sound impulses of both reason and patriotism for resisting it, and opinion polls suggest that these are felt as much by voters on the Right as on the Left.

[Quetzal]

1. Use this if you don't want to sign up

http://www.bugmenot.com

[T_i_B]

3. If you are in the UK...

...then you don't need to register, although as this is the Times it's not like articles from this source are normally any good. This is a rare case of a top rate article from the Times.

[Manix]

2. Interesting. The US right always needs a bogeyman (ie. Soviet Union)

to pump up their so-called national security advantage and at
the moment terrorism conveniently fills the bill. They can't
compete solely on a domestic agenda. Raw politics trumps
principle for this crowd.