Hot off the AZ Presses

[tombogan03884]

FP= foriegn policy
DP=domestic policy
A neoconservative believes in an ideologically based foriegn policy. Promoting democracies and if necessay undermining and over throwing tyrants to do so. It puts moral goals as a coequal value with self interest.
A realist believes in securing the national interest and not worrying about the internal policies of other nations. To quote Kissenger "The purpose of foriegn  policy is to change the external behavior of nations, not to determine their national policies". In other words, behavior change, not regime change should be the primary goal.
This has been the traditional conservative  and libertarian position. The liberals worried about ideology. We didn't much care.  Then in the 1960s, guys like Bill Kristol came to Jesus (figuratively in his case  ), and abandoned liberalism in the face of the Soviet threat. They kept the idealism though.  They started the neo-con movement. This is the difference is between Bush I and BushII (and I shall call him mini-me ). The elder and smarter Bush just wanted Saddam out of Kuwait and didn't give a damn about the Kurds or Shiites. We don't live there, not our problem. Bush II, he wanted Saddam gone, but also wanted a Wilsonian/Carteresque transformation of Iraqi society into a multi-ethnic, pluralistic democracy. A noble goal, but it  sure made the mission a lot harder than just putting some general in charge and going home in 6 months. Daddy Bush wouldn't have given a f..k. Junior did and here we sit. I think we should listen to our fathers.
FQ13

Oh you mean like "Support any freind, resist any foe" ?

We NEED a realistic Foreign Policy, playground rules will work a lot better than Aholes in pinstripe have done.

[fightingquaker13]

To paraphrase Franklin (who stole it from the NW trading company) " We have neither eternal friends nor perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual".
FQ13 who realizes we've screwed over more than one democracy when it was in our interest.