Fareed Zakaria: McCain's downfall, Republican foreign policy:

The electorate has seemed to sense that there is a new world out there and that the nostrums presented by McCain in his campaign are irrelevant to it. As with economics, these feelings developed after watching the ideas in action. Bush embraced a series of radical policy stances -- many of them long espoused by neoconservatives -- especially during his first term.

But the vigorous unilateralism openly advocated by the administration is recognized by most Americans to have weakened the country's influence abroad. Its excessive reliance on military force has yielded few results worth the costs.

At the heart of Bush's ideology was regime change -- armed Wilsonianism. Whether in Iraq, North Korea or Iran, the basic goal was to refuse any kind of negotiation or diplomacy and instead try to overthrow the government and replace it with a democratic and friendly one. Most Americans now recognize that, however pleasant this sounds in theory, the real world is a complicated place and cannot be transformed by magic or military power.

The most powerful repudiation of Bush's ideas has come from Bush himself. Over the past three years, he has negotiated with North Korea and Libya and even taken a tentative step with Iran; launched a high-profile peace process between the Palestinians and Israelis; and made encouraging proposals about global warming. These are all steps Bush actively opposed during his first term. He has moved in this direction out of necessity. Failure concentrates the mind. ...

Posted by Laura at November 10, 2008 08:58 AM