Suskind’s earlier book, “The One-Percent Doctrine”, was compelling and well-written. It zoned in on Cheney’s rubric that if there was a one-percent chance that a scenario could be true, then it was necessary to address it aggressively.
“The Way of the World” is written in a totally different style in which a theme is weaved very cogently throughout. Suskind is concerned that the Bush Administration’s behavior has resulted in the loss of international friends and support, a loss of respect for the nation’s constitutional principles, and a distortion of our perception of others (with some specificity, the Muslims).
With different stories interspersed throughout, he demonstrates the negative impact of policies that ignore the Constitution, e.g., denial of Habeas Corpus for Guantanamo prisoners, enable aggressive interventions based on lies, e.g., Iraq, and policies that prevent us from marshaling resources to address real problems, e.g., our failure to ensure that rogue access to nuclear weapons will be avoided.
In short, he wants to restore our soft power (not his verbiage) by conducting our international foreign policy in a more ethical, forthright, cooperative way that will restore our nation’s image throughout the world.
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