Fareed Zakaria Says that It Is Time to Stop Bashing Bush
It's not clear why Fareed Zakaria things it's time to stop bashing Bush, but he does:
Zakaria: How to Restore America's Place in the World: While the Bush administration has contributed mightily to this state of affairs, at this point it has reversed itself on many of its most egregious policies—from global warming to North Korea to Iraq. In any event, it is time to stop bashing George W. Bush. We must begin to think about life after Bush.... In 19 months he will be a private citizen, giving speeches to insurance executives. America, however, will have to move on and restore its place in the world.
To do this we must first tackle the consequences of our foreign policy of fear.... [W]e have managed in six years to destroy decades of international good will, alienate allies, embolden enemies and yet solve few of the major international problems we face. In a global survey released last week, most countries polled believed that China would act more responsibly in the world than the United States. How does a Leninist dictatorship come across more sympathetically than the oldest constitutional democracy in the world?... The problem today is not that America is too strong but that it is seen as too arrogant, uncaring and insensitive. Countries around the world believe that the United States, obsessed with its own notions of terrorism, has stopped listening to the rest of the world...
It seems to me that these are all reasons to keep bashing Bush. Does anybody doubt that the United States would be better off if the post-Bush era started tomorrow than nineteen months from now? Anybody? Anybody at all? Bueller?
