The prolonged campaign for the White House shows why the US finds it so difficult to pursue a rational foreign policy in a world of unprecedented complexity. Articulating foreign policy in the heat of an election produces an irresistible temptation to proclaim simplistic remedies to complicated foreign challenges.<\/p>\n
Hence the hasty public declarations that Syria\u2019s Bashar al-Assad must go even before a realistic US policy to achieve that goal had been formulated. And hence the deference shown to the fevered pleas of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s prime minister, for an ultimatum to Iran and the repeated references to the eventual use of US military power, without much consideration for potential regional or even global consequences. Hence, also, the pledge by Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, to announce that on day one of his presidency \u201d\u201c without any prior negotiations \u201d\u201c he would take punitive steps against China\u2019s \u201ccurrency manipulations\u201d\u009d, irrespective of likely retaliation.<\/p>\n
Alas, such a foreign policy \u201d\u201c derived from politically expedient, short-term commitments \u201d\u201c risks setting in motion dynamics that ultimately lead to international chaos….<\/p>\n