Foreign Policy: Home Alone?(President Bush called isolationist)(Brief Article)

In a time of world peace and stability, it can be hard to pick holes in a president's conduct of foreign policy, but George W. Bush's critics have found a bad rap to hang on him: He is an isolationist.

Senate majority leader Tom Daschle picked the moment of Bush's departure on his second European trip to say that "we are isolating ourselves" and "minimizing ourselves." As instances of Bush's isolationism, Daschle cited his reluctance to broker peace in the Middle East and stop AIDS in Africa, and his eagerness to pursue a missile-defense system over Russian and European objections. Other critics stressed Bush's failure to sign on to international treaties and agreements: the latest version of the Kyoto protocol on global warming, signed in Bonn; a draft of a pact on germ warfare; and a proposed International Criminal Court.

Many of the specific charges, especially Daschle's, are bogus. The AIDS epidemic in Africa is a catastrophe of African politics and mores, not to be solved by infusions of cash. What would the majority leader suggest-a new imperialism? The Middle East peace process is in hopeless shape because Bush's predecessor tried to race through an agreement; when the Clinton process ran out of gas, the vehicle broke down. After Daschle wrung his hands about Russian objections to Star Wars, Vladimir Putin announced he might well go along with it. The Bonn version of the Kyoto protocol is grandstanding on the part of all its European signatories, designed to please the Greens who are their domestic coalition partners. No industrial countries will sign an actual treaty that cripples their economies.

The Bush administration has specific objections to other proposed international agreements. The germ-warfare pact is unenforceable because of recent expansions in biotech facilities; one American expert on chemical ...