On the world front, candidate differences are matters of degree
WASHINGTON -- If one of the great surprises of the Bush administration over the past three years has been its focus on foreign policy, the same can be said for the 2004 presidential race, which has revolved around the war in Iraq and other problems in far-flung corners of the world.
But beyond one central disagreement -- whether the United States was right to invade Iraq when it did -- are the Democrats that far apart from one another on other basic foreign issues?
In practice, would any of the top-tier candidates radically change the underpinnings of the current Bush policy in handling problems elsewhere?
Foreign policy specialists and campaign strategists agree that the distinctions between the two parties are more pronounced than among the Democratic candidates -- try as they might to attack each other on international affairs and to distinguish themselves from each other heading into the primaries.
Even when the Democrats are pitted against Bush, a main distinction, it seems, lies in the approach: Democrats say they would be more modest about US power, reaching out to international institutions and relying more on allies. Bush has taken a far more aggressive line, emphasizing the US right to launch unilateral attacks preemptively.
While many of the Democrats have railed against Bush over Iraq, they maintain that the United States has a right to launch a first strike if an attack on US soil is imminent.
On a host of other issues, from North Korea to the Middle East, several Democrats occasionally sound at least as aggressive as Bush. They accuse the administration of not doing enough to solve the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, of not negotiating with Pyongyang, of having too many ties to the Saudi government, and of having a too narrow approach toward Cuba.
"They're all calling from the same area code," said James M. Lindsey, director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There may be some differences, but there is a fair amount of similarity -- not in terms of Iraq, because there are real differences there. But in terms of the general view of America's role in the world, how you deploy American power, the rule of law, all these candidates share the same general outlook."
If there is a spectrum, he said, it reaches from Dennis Kucinich on the liberal end to Joseph I. Lieberman on the more conservative one, but "they're all pretty much in the same general intellectual place."
Although they differ in the details, the top-tier candidates would engage in talks with North Korea and would allow for some sort of incentive package to encourage Pyongyang to dismantle its weapons programs; would restart the Middle East peace talks; would work more closely with the United Nations and Europe, including relying on weapons inspectors when necessary; would take a more skeptical approach with Russia, because of crackdowns on rights in Chechnya.
The most obvious foreign policy differences within the Democratic Party are in two arenas: whether to accelerate free trade with other nations and how to handle the regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba. Other questions, such as precisely how to enter talks with North Korea, are more nuanced.
Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, for instance, has said he would engage North Korea's leadership directly, rather than in a group setting with four other nations, as Bush has done. He would also deliver economic incentives as part of a "nonagression pact" with Pyongyang in exchange for cessation of the nuclear weapons program.
Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts promises to "engage Iran and renew bilateral negotiations with North Korea on the nuclear issue," a direct assault on Bush's far more distant approach.
On Cuba, the line pits one group of Democrats opposing an embargo -- retired general Wesley K. Clark, Kerry, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, and Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri -- against Lieberman of Connecticut and, of course, President Bush, who opposes any trade with Cuba under the current government.
Cuba is a key electoral issue, playing to an important group of exiles in the battleground state of Florida, though it rarely dominates the national debate among candidates.
Trade is perhaps the more divisive issue, because of the strength of labor unions, whose manufacturing workers say they have been hurt by relaxed trade rules over the past decade.
Gephardt was a leading opponent of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993, when it passed Congress. He gave a speech advocating an "international minimum wage" recently, one of the more worker-oriented platforms on the ballot.
Dean, who was governor when NAFTA came into play, supported the measure; he maintains it was good for Vermont. Now that he's a national candidate, Dean is more equivocal. On the campaign trail, he tilts toward labor, arguing in favor of revisions to NAFTA, including requiring all countries to have the same labor and environmental standards so that businesses cannot gain an advantage by moving to countries lacking in labor and environmental protections.
Edwards, whose home state has suffered a loss in manufacturing jobs since NAFTA, also takes a more protectionist view. Kerry, meanwhile, argues strongly in favor of NAFTA, as does Clark, though both say they would seek some sort of enforceable labor and environmental standards.
Even so, experts aren't sure the differences are all that stark.
"We have to be a little bit careful trying to read anybody's worldview from where they are in the campaign," said Steve Walt, a professor at Harvard's Belfer Center for International Affairs. "If you went back and looked at what George Bush and his whole team said in 2000, you'd get some things right -- but you'd get a lot of things really wrong. One theme of his campaign was nation-building is really terrible. We wake up three years later, and we're doing it several places."
