] The Doomsayers suggest that Bush’s second term is
] likely to produce further military interventions
] overseas, along the lines of Iraq in 2003. Perhaps Syria
] may be the next target of U.S. military power, they
] suggest, or Iran. They believe that the neoconservatives
] (that is, officials such as Deputy Secretary of Defense
] Paul Wolfowitz), who were the driving force behind the
] Bush administration’s preventive war against Iraqi
] leader Saddam Hussein, will have even greater power and
] influence, now that the president has won reelection.
] “Secretary of State Colin Powell is not staying for a
] second term,� warned one Foreign Service officer,
] writing under the byline “Anonymousâ€? on Salon.com
] last month. “When he goes the last bulwark against
] complete neoconservative control of U.S. foreign policy
] goes with him.�
]
]
] The Skeptics contend that Bush’s foreign policy in his
] second term will turn out to be more cautious and less
] belligerent than his first, if not by choice, then by
] compulsion. Whatever some hawks might like to do, the
] reality is that the Bush administration will face a
] series of constraints—military, diplomatic, political,
] and economic—that will curb its ability to launch new
] preventive wars. Moreover, say adherents of the Skeptic
] school, the power of the neoconservatives inside the
] administration will probably be diminished, not
] augmented, during Bush’s second term.

Foreign Policy: Four More Years