Nukes and Fetuses

There is a very interesting analysis of the Bush Administration's foreign policy in The New Republic this week, arguing that the administration's ideology prevents it from dealing effectively with nuclear proliferation. The gist:

...Indeed, of 15 scenarios discussed in a 2004 report by the Homeland Security Council--including terrorist attacks with chemical, biological, and radiological weapons--only a nuclear attack is certain to require years of recovery time. This leads to a simple conclusion: In the near term, the war on terrorism--whatever else it is--should first be a war on nuclear terrorism.

It has become all too clear, however, that this is a war the Bush administration is spectacularly ill-equipped to fight, handicapped as it is by a worldview that revolves around our enemies' intentions rather than their capabilities...The administration is consumed by the idea that the character of states is of primary importance to U.S. security. This ideology, this conservative fixation, explains why, for much of Bush's presidency, his administration focused on Iraq to the exclusion of North Korea and Iran...Indeed, an examination of the Bush administration's ideology shows that, not only has it made some bad decisions for U.S. security, but that it is constitutionally incapable of making the right ones.

Farther down, elaborating on this thesis:

Alas, the White House's state-centrism did not yield a focus on rogue states' capabilities, but rather on their intentions. Bush officials wanted not simply to defang enemy regimes, but to change them--to end them, as Wolfowitz said. This preference for regime change as post-September 11 strategy is the natural outgrowth of the conservative belief that the moral character of a state should determine how the United States engages it, or whether it does so at all. As Dick Cheney once put it, "We don't negotiate with evil; we defeat it."

I think there is a parallel here to the administration's approach to abortion. Any effective effort to reduce the number of abortions performed in the United States would almost surely have birth control as a key component. But aggressively promoting contraception is seen by this administration as a societal blessing on extramarital sex, a big no-no. So, as looking away from a rogue ruler's bad behavior (like being a tyrannical dictator) in order to prevent even worse behavior (like supplying a terrorist with a nuke) is anathema, so to is promoting one sort of bad behavior in young women (extramarital sex) for the sake of preventing one perceived as much worse (abortion.) The consequences: North Korea keeps popping out more nuclear bombs, while abortion clinics keep dismantling fetuses.

I'm convinced Bush is sincere in his belief that abortion is profoundly wrong, and I know he does not want to see a nuclear attack on American soil. In both cases, though, he has let a requirement for ideologically perfect means be the enemy of good ends.