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07/19/2004:

"Kerry’s Progressive Internationalism: Achieving American Dominance Multilaterally"

commondreams.org
In his 2003 address to the Council on Foreign Relations, presidential candidate John Kerry disavowed the U.S. quest for empire as he criticized the Bush Administration’s foreign policy as “the most arrogant, inept, reckless and ideological foreign policy in modern history.” Instead of empire, Kerry will commit the United States to a “new progressive internationalism” buttressed by renewed alliance and enforced by a dominant US military.

Kerry’s “new” foreign policy has its roots in a policy paper entitled, “Progressive Internationalism: A Democratic National Security Strategy,” found at the Progressive Policy Institute (www.ppionline.org), a New Democrat think-tank. These New Democrats represent the conservative tilting wing of the Democratic Party.

Progressive internationalists define their strategy as a “tough minded internationalism,” that “occupies the vital center between the neo-imperial right and the non-interventionalist left.” They advocate the “bold exercise of American power, not to dominate but to shape alliances and international institutions.”

Their forebears include the Democratic Presidents of the 20th century who they credit with building the international institutions that led to global prosperity and global security. While they argue that they’re opposed to empire, these progressive internationalists honor presidencies that exhibited imperial strains such as Wilson’s invasion of Mexico, US sabotage of Italian elections under Truman, Kennedy’s attacks on Cuba and the invasion of Vietnam, Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam War, and Clinton’s brutal use of bombing and sanctions against Iraq. These events are left unexplained and unexamined and beg the question as to how a democratic national security strategy differs from imperialism.

As a result, “Progressive Internationalism” reads like a saccharine strategy for US hegemony through a multilateral veil. The program calls for the US to again lead the free world by spreading the gospel of free-trade, open markets, and representative democracy cooperatively when possible, militarily if necessary. full article