HONOLULU -- The controversy swirling around President George W. Bush's foreign policy is remarkable for two things. The first is the consensus regarding its content. Observers generally agree that the Bush foreign policy is muscular, unilateralist and dominated by political realists who practice power politics. Under the Bush administration, the United States is acting like real superpower -- perhaps even an imperial power.
But "realism" has a second, more conventional meaning, and in this context it is every bit as important as the first. Despite that image, the truth is many of the foreign policy decisions that the Bush team has made are no different from those any other U.S. administration would have been forced to make.
It is unlikely that any president would have gotten Senate ratification of the Kyoto protocol. Winning approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or the treaty that established the International Criminal Court would have tested any president's mettle and political courage.