On Tuesday, I wrote about Bill Weld, who is running for president in the Republican primary, criticizing President Donald Trump for causing the United States to “retreat into isolationism,” with “isolationism” being used as a substitute for a foreign policy of nonintervention. Weld is not the only politician recently making this bizarre accusation about Trump. It appears from reporting by Washington Post columnist Josh Rogin that this week former United States President George W. Bush did so as well.
Relating at Twitter comments made Wednesday by Bush at the Nir School of the Heart, Rogin wrote the following:
George W Bush takes a direct shot at Trump: “An isolationist United States is destabilizing around the world. We are becoming isolationist and that’s dangerous for the sake of peace.”
Hmm. I wonder if we will soon be seeing many more politicians and political commentators condemning Trump for his “isolationism.”
Of course, Trump’s foreign policy actions, including the expanding of sanctions and continuing of military interventions across the world, is not noninterventionist. Still, misapplied disparaging comments from critics such as Weld and Bush can help to muddy the waters of, and narrow the parameters of, debate about US foreign policy. It can also help cloud people’s understanding of what an actual noninterventionist foreign policy would look like.
The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity is a project of Dr. Paul’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education (F.R.E.E.), founded in the 1970s as an educational organization. The Institute continues and expands Dr. Paul’s lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties at home. Visit http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org