2008: McCain’s Foreign Policy Address

Delivered in Los Angeles yesterday, John McCain’s speech contained several passages worth a look from those interested in how (or if) we should promote democracy abroad.  In some spots, the language McCain used was reminiscent of George W. Bush’s second inaugural address: “I believe it is possible in our time to make the world we live in another, better, more peaceful place, where our interests and those of our allies are more secure, and American ideals that are transforming the world, the principles of free people and free markets, advance even farther than they have.” McCain argues that his “League of Democracies” would help advance these values through a global alliance of democratic nations. Elsewhere, he suggests ideas that haven’t exactly been paramount in the Bush administration’s foreign policy strategy, such as “institutionalizing our cooperation” with Europe on foreign assistance and democracy promotion.

In order to win the hearts and minds of moderate Muslims in the fight against radicalism, McCain prescribes “scholarships” instead of “smart bombs”. The speech justifies continued commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan by saying that whether they become stable democracies will “determine not only the fate of that critical part of the world, but our fate, as well.”

Perhaps most interestingly, McCain decries our reliance on “out-dated autocracies” in the Middle East, saying “they no longer provide lasting stability, only the illusion of it.”  While he tempers his words by counseling against “rash” actions on our part, he concludes that the status quo is neither sustainable nor in our interests.  This is quite possibly the least-veiled criticism of regimes like those in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan that we’ve heard thus far in the campaign.  But that’s not saying much, unfortunately.