You may notice that if I post, I try consistently to describe US foreign policy historically as being conducted by a US foreign policy establishment, and hawkish foreign policies as hawkish policies.

With such a focus I do not have to limit myself to discussions of policies under Democrats or Republicans, nor do I have to ignore those factors. Apart from biography or helping me to accurately predict a politicians' actions, I don't personally care whether a hawkish politician pushes hawkish policies or a dovish politician accedes to and carries out hawkish policies. In this world, both and more scenarios are and have been possible.

Thus maybe I can help to remind that there are policy goals and pushes which are coherent over time, and values of the US foreign policy "establishment" (which spans Republican and Democratic regimes) which one can analyze and study, and even make ranges of predictions.

I don't have the time to make sure I've worded everything exactly perfectly, but suffice it to say that I don't feel it's either a requirement that I always rhetorically equate Democratic politician-led governments morally with Republican politician-led governments, nor do I feel it's a requirement to ignore similarities when they exist. Maybe mistakenly I assume that people understand that politicians of either party can carry out hideous and murderous foreign (or domestic) policies, but I do assume that to a degree.

So, for example, while Clinton did uphold what I believe to be murderous and nearly genocidal sanctions on Iraq, and bombed them repeatedly, murderously, and illegally, I don't believe he or Gore would have invaded and occupied Iraq as has been done under Bush Jr, which managed to take a horrible situation and make it far worse.

In this case, I don't think Bush Jr's policies represent a traditional consensus of the power structure (for good or more commonly for their own good and everyone else's ill), but a deranged act favoring a very small subset of US elites. It seems to me the complete opposite of the first US war against Iraq, which was clearly favored by the entire US power structure, mainly with regards to removing Iraq from Kuwait by force, rather than by any negotiations or non-warfare means. (The following destruction of the Iraqi army and bombing of Baghdad was mainly for the benefit of Bush Sr., those policy elites who hated any independently powerful Arab nationalist government, and military-linked elites, in my view.)

But as usual, the rest of the elites, including the news producers and media pundits who serve and wish to be countenanced among US power elites, go along until such time as these policies prove disastrous.

That doesn't mean I have to therefore assume that Clinton or Gore would have thus pursued angelic and peaceful or even basically lawful and not murderous policies, but sometimes the differences are significant.

To us citizens of the USA these differences at times may seem great or at times may seem minor -- i.e., the innocent civilians of Cambodia didn't much care whether LBJ or Nixon were carpet bombing them, nor should they have cared to have the subtle distinctions pointed out to them -- but so far there hasn't arrived the extraterrestrial forces who can force the US policy establishment to follow any Earthly laws. Similarly, I can't conceive of any top Democrats or Republicans who would have failed to attempt to overthrow or subvert or otherwise harm the government of Hugo Chavez and any significantly independent policies in Venezuela, as that would be 100% in line with US policies of brute, cruel, and harmful to both their and our citizens in Latin America. (In this case, thankfully, these attempts have so far failed.)

If people make an argument that within a particular context, a particular Democratically led government may significantly change policies from a particular Republican led government, what matters is that argument, its soundness, and its validity, not an assumption external to the argument that the arguer is necessarily naive about the historic roles of both Democrats and Republicans in horrible foreign policies.