hankyoreh

The United States presidential election has begun in full now that the Republican National Convention has come to a close with Senator John McCain’s acceptance speech as the Republican candidate for president. Just as Senator Barack Obama did in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, McCain promised change. Recognizing that the American people’s confidence in the Republican Party had suffered, he pledged to fight to restore the party’s pride and principles. He also said he would bring back the values Americans admire by reforming an old Washington culture in which personal interests come before those of the country.

However, he did not adequately differentiate between the direction in which he would take the United States and the direction taken by the Bush administration. On the domestic front he wants the same things the Bush administration has long talked about: small government, reducing taxes and school vouchers. Emphasizing his unorthodox Republican record of transcending the party, he said that, if elected, he would run the country by reaching across the aisle. The significance of that pledge, however, has already lost half its luster for the fact that he chose the ultraconservative Sarah Palin as his vice presidential candidate. It feels like you are watching the revival of the Christian Right and the Neocons with the way they divided the United States and the world when you see Palin, with her image as an attack dog armed with conservative values like opposition to abortion.

In terms of foreign policy as well, McCain failed to say anything new. He listed al Qaeda, Iran, and Russia (for having invaded Georgia) as threats facing the United States and said he would use all means necessary, including military ones, to maintain peace. But he did not explain how his foreign policy would differ from that of President George W. Bush.

Of particular concern would be his policy on North Korea. He made no mention of Pyongyang in his acceptance speech, but the Republican Party’s platform defines the North as a “maniacal” state and says it will not stop demanding of it that it disassemble its nuclear programs through “complete, verifiable, and irreversible” means. We have seen well enough over the past eight years, however, how that kind of approach to North Korea has failed. It led to lost opportunities for peace and the unparalleled situation we have in the North possessing nuclear weapons. Even the Bush administration eventually gave up on its earlier policies and turned to dialogue with the North, and it made some degree of progress in dismantling those nuclear weapons as a result. If the Republican Party were to now return to the approach of the past, the Korean Peninsula could again be sent to the netherland of confrontation and suffering. That is something we cannot accept.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]