Posted by Tina
People have accused the Bush Administration of practicing unilateralism. His so called go it alone policy was the subject of scathing comments from both democrats and media. But Paula Dobriansky, a senior diplomat in the State Department, has a different story to tell:
** “Coming into this job, my father had a great impact on me. He talked about the importance of the human condition and he said that freedom and human dignity are essential components of the human condition. . . . All of my areas, when you look at them, they all relate to the human condition and to those fundamental needs. . . . And all of these issues — health, human rights, women’s issues, democracy, the environment — are interwoven into our broader national security priorities of peace and stability.” Paula Dobriansky **
Bush Was No Unilateralist, by Kimberly A. Strassel Wall Street Journal
** Paula Dobriansky is too much the diplomat to ever “bristle” at a question. But the word “unilateralism” elicits something close to that response. Sitting in her comfortable office, located in a drab wing of the drab State Department, I ask the undersecretary for democracy and global affairs just what she thinks of the conventional judgment that the Bush administration has practiced a “go it alone” foreign policy. *** “If you look at every issue here, every issue I deal with, I can tell you our method has not been to take the U.S. experience and merely transplant it on the soil of another country,” she says firmly. “Every issue here has had a rather vibrant, multilateral component to it. And you can see the results.” *** On the face of it, her remit — “global affairs” — encompasses a bewildering set of responsibilities: climate change, human trafficking, pandemic disease, women’s issues, democracy, refugees, oceans, migration. The only glue that officially binds these issues together is that none can be solved with bilateral negotiations. They all require global cooperation, or as the undersecretary likes to put it, a “holistic” response. **
I hope you will read the entire article for a more accurate and complete picture of diplomatic efforts and accomplishments during the Bush years.