First, Recognize The Mistake. The Main Thing

In The 2000 Election, George W. Bush, Who Had Shirked Military Service, Succeeded In Presenting Himself As More Reliable On National Security Than Al Gore.

Foreign Policy Is An Explicitly Amoral Enterprise.

You've Got To Deploy Serious Political Assets Around A Plan [in Darfur]. And The George W.] Bush Administration Has Never Had A Plan. Ever. The Europeans Don't Want To Do Anything, Saying, "the Americans Are In Charge Of That." And In Fact The Americans Are In Charge Of Naming It And Bringing These Resolutions Every Few Weeks To The Security Council.

When Dictators Feel Their Support Slipping Among Adults, It Is Not Unusual For Them To Alter School Textbooks In The Hope Of Enlisting Impressionable Youths In Their Cause.

Another Longstanding Foreign Policy Flaw Is The Degree To Which Special Interests Dictate The Way In Which The "national Interest" As A Whole Is Defined And Pursued.... America's Important Historic Relationship With Israel Has Often Led Foreign Policy Decision-makers To Defer Reflexively To Israeli Security Assessments, And To Replicate Israeli Tactics, Which, As The War In Lebanon Last Summer Demonstrated, Can Turn Out To Be Counter-productive.