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"I am critical of the fact that what they have done is made it clear, don't argue with the United States because God is on our side," said Albright. |
CAIRO — Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright lashed out at incumbent President George W. Bush for invoking religion into his foreign policies, describing his Iraq war as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy, the Akransas New Bureau local daily reported on Thursday, September 28.
"I am critical of the fact that what they have done is made it clear, don't argue with the United States because God is on our side," Albright told a packed crowd at the University of Arkansas on Wednesday, September 27.
"You've picked a fight with God."
Albright said that while Abraham Lincoln, the 16th US president and the first from the Republican Party, used to say that people must be on God's side, Bush "believes that God is on our side."
Albright, who served under the Clinton administration, said every American president had evoked God somehow during his term.
What wartime Bush has done differently from them is making his belief policy, she added.
The certainty of Bush’s beliefs is the problem, Albright said, because there is no alternative resolution in the time of crisis.
Albright said that for nationalism to exist today, a person has to know what they believe and have respect for the faith of others.
"We have lost that moral authority."
Bush won his second term in office by playing the card of religion and terror scars.
He has repeatedly portrayed his so-called war on terror as a battle between good and evil.
Bush upset many Muslims after the 9/11 attacks by referring to his war as a "crusade," a term which for many Muslims connotes a Christian battle against Islam.
Bush has recently said that the United States was at war with "Islamic fascists," drawing immediate rebuke from his American Muslims.
Evangelical Christians, the fastest-growing faith-based group in the US, are having a growing impact on America's political landscape.
Evangelicals, who are wedded with Republicans to a set of beliefs and share common grounds on issues like the Iraq war and revolutionary theory, played a pivotal role in tilting the scales in Bush's favor in the last presidential election.
Greatest Disaster
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| Bush has repeatedly portrayed his so-called war on terror as a battle between good and evil. |
Albright dismissed Bush's Iraq policy as "a mess".
"I think Iraq is going to go down as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy," she told the audience.
The former top diplomat said the Bush administration was preoccupied with the Middle East at the expense of all else.
"In the Middle East, we are in a caldron of problems and ... we're not paying attention to the developments in Africa or Latin America or how to integrate China and India as world powers."
She said the Bush administration was practicing A-B-C, or "anything but Clinton" as their policy.
"We confuse the world. Foreign policy does not come in four year segments."
Albright said the Iraq war has fueled terrorism and made the United States less safe.
A declassified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) identified the Iraq war as one of four underlying factors fueling the spread of the terror, calling it a "cause célèbre" for extremists.
It predicted that over the next five years the factors fueling global terror were likely to be more powerful than those that might slow it.
A survey for BBC World Service radio showed on Tuesday, February 28, that most people in 33 out of 35 countries worldwide believe that the Iraq war has increased the threat of terrorism.
Albright said that there were no good options or solutions for Iraq at this time and that the US troops need to get out.
Two polls published by the Washington Post on Wednesday, September 27, said that the majority of Iraqis wanted an immediate pullout of the US troops from the war-torn country.
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