War-as-Diplomacy a Long-held Approach for the GOP Nominee

By Spencer Ackerman
the Washington Independent

Since he began running for president, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has embraced President George W. Bush's foreign policy. He has done so for a simple and understandable reason: it was McCain's policy first.

"I'd institute a policy that I call 'rogue state rollback,'" McCain said during a GOP primary debate in February 2000. "I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically elected governments." Though Bush himself would not embrace McCain's weltanshauung until after 9/11, this approach to global affairs would eventually become known as the Bush Doctrine.

(Matt Mahurin) Yet when McCain walked to the podium yesterday at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council to deliver his clearest speech yet outlining a McCain foreign policy -- a policy characterized by what could be endless wars -- the media almost uniformly declared it a break with Bush.

McCain sanded down the edges of the Bush Doctrine by urging more consulting with allies and action on climate change. The result? "Republican presidential candidate John McCain suggested that as president, his foreign-policy approach would be different, more collaborative," Fox News's Molly Henneberg reported. Added CNN's Dana Bash:"This speech was mainly an attempt to highlight a McCain world view quite different from the president's."

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