An op-ed in the conservative Wall Street Journal (June, 2008) provides another example of how there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats, especially when it comes to foreign policy.

The op-ed, entitled “Don’t Expect a Big Change in US Foreign Policy” by Timothy J. Lynch and Robert S. Singh, argues that no matter who is elected president — McCain, Obama, or Clinton — foreign interventionism will continue to be the order of the day.  

Obama may have suspected that the conquest of Iraq would not go well, which is the most likely reason that he opposed it. After all, does Obama ever talk in terms of moral principles? Does he ever say that it was wrong to attack a country that had never attacked the United States?  

That it’s wrong for the US government to be committing the war crime of waging a war of aggression, especially after having participated in a legal proceeding that punished German officials for committing such as war crime? That it’s morally wrong for US soldiers to be killing and maiming Iraqis in an occupation that is rooted in an illegal war of aggression?  

That the US invasion and occupation of Iraq are illegal under our form of government given that President Bush never secured the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war?  

I’ve never heard Obama say any of those things. All I’ve ever heard him say, in essence, is that the occupation and the surge aren’t working and that President Bush should have continued bombing people in Afghanistan (without the constitutionally required congressional declaration of war) in the hopes that one of those bombs landed on Osama bin Laden.  

Not A Dime's Worth Of Difference On Foreign Policy