America's 'Seinfeld' strategy in Iraq

Perhaps the most hilarious, insightful skewering of this Administration's disastrous foreign policy I've read...

The Iraq policy pursued by the Bush administration satisfies the Costanza criterion: it is the opposite of every foreign policy the world has ever met...

In “The Opposite”, George breaches the most fundamental laws in his universe – for example, the age-old principle that “bald men with no jobs and no money, who live with their parents, don’t approach strange women”.

Similarly, in its geopolitical incarnation, adherents to the Costanza doctrine cast aside many of the fundamental tenets they learnt at staff college or graduate school. Let me name a few.

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America’s ‘Seinfeld’ strategy in Iraq

By Michael Fullilove, Financial Times

Published: March 29 2007 17:46 | Last updated: March 29 2007 17:46

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f1874316-de08-11db-afa7-000b5df10621.html

The history of US foreign policy is punctuated by a series of doctrines. The Monroe doctrine (1823) declared that European powers would not be allowed to intrude into the western hemisphere. The Truman doctrine (1947) committed Washington to assisting free peoples in the fight against communism. The Nixon doctrine (1969) warned that America’s allies would need to assume primary responsibility for their own defence.