So...After Bush....

From American Progress:

NATIONAL SECURITY
Inheriting Bush's Mess

So far, the 2008 election has focused on growing challenges at home, including the fallout
from the sub-prime mortgage crisis, escalating gas prices, and health care for millions of uninsured. But another leading policy challenge for the next administration is cleaning up
the mess from
the Bush administration's national security policies and making a clean break from the
past seven years.

Speaking at the Center for American Progress yesterday, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE)
offered a vision for moving forward: "Military power alone will not achieve the great
objectives that are going to be required to meet these new 21st century challenges; it's
going to require a 21st century framework of thinking, of policymaking, of structure."

Hagel suggested that "reintroducing America to the world will be as important as any
one thing this next President has to do, because if we lose the next generation of the
world, the problems will then be so immense that we will never be able to get out from
under them."

Hagel's view is rare among conservatives, most of whom continue to march in lockstep
with President Bush's disastrous national security policies. Acknowledging that Iraq
continues to be mired in violence, Hagel stressed once again that "there is no military
solution in Iraq, [and] the military guys understand that more than anyone, because we
put all the burden on them. All the burden on them."

Wrap...