Clemons on Bolton

Steve Clemons over at the Washington Note has a very good piece on the implications of the Bolton resignation.  One of the more interesting things he discusses is how our government is now without an UN Ambassador, Counselor to the Secretary of State and Undersecretary of State.  I'd add while Rice herself seems to be being upstaged and perhaps undermined by the Baker-Hamilton Commission.  All of this comes at a time when representing America to a skeptical world is perhaps more important than its been in a very long time. 

The Bolton departure is another example of how the neocon regime is collapsing, and we are arriving at a juncture we call the end of the conservative ascendency.  The way things have been run is ending.  A new era is being born.  But Bush and his team are still in charge, however intellectually exhausted and politically defeated they are.  How they fill these senior State positions, and whether Rice stays on, is going to be a critical test of how deeply involved this Administration will be in crafting what comes next for American foreign policy. 

For as I've been writing these last few weeks (here and here for example), right now our great tests abroad are diplomatic, political and of our capacity to imagine a different and better course for the world.  We've relearned that the use of force has its limits, a lesson this country learned painfully after WWI and did not repeat after WWII.  The question now is what are the governing principles behind American foreign policy in the 21st century? How do we see our role in the world? What lessons have we learned from our experience in Iraq, and the increasing chaos in the Middle East? Will we have time to start looking more strategically at some of the other challenges we face? Immigration? Latin America? The rise of China? The descent of Russia? North Korea? Global climate change? Globalization itself?

It seems that one of the great services our new Congress could provide for the American people is a robust set of hearings on the great foreign policy facing America in the 21st century.  Help provide fodder for the big debate we must have in the years ahead as we all look to dig out from the mess left behind by Bush and his team.