The Bush Doctrine

Norman Podhoretz has written a long article in Commentary worth reading in its entirety. In it, he defends the “Bush Doctrine,” which he says is built on four pillars:

1. Rejection of the kind of relativism (“One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter”) that had previously prevailed in the discussion of terrorism.

2. A new conception of terrorism asserting that terrorists should be regarded as the irregular troops of the nation states that harbored and supported them.

3. Determination to take preemptive action against an anticipated attack, because “unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons or missiles or secretly provide them to terrorist allies.”

4. The election of “new leaders” in Palestine, “who would embark on building entirely new political and economic institutions based on democracy, market economics, and action against terrorism.”

To further summarize, the Bush Doctrine’s four pillars recognize that: 1) terrorism is evil; 2) terrorism includes the nation states that back it; 3) we must take the fight to terrorist nations before terrorism strikes us, and; 4) terrorism centered in the Middle East requires a democratic Palestine to counter it.