Media's Role In Foreign Policy Summary

The executive arm of the government under the President wields more power as compared to the Congress. The feeling that power should be shared 50-50 between the Presidency and the Congress is a fallacy. Foreign policy involves various players, the executive arm, and the Congress being the major policy contributors (Hastedt 169).However, the Presidency has several key arms that provide a superior advantage. Considering that the Presidency is established on a purely political process, the Congress somehow becomes divisive on matters relating to foreign policy, always leaning on one side, in this case, the Presidency. Pillar (51) clearly depicts the scenario during the Republican presidential candidate’s debates in his book. The candidates make a blatant promise to their parties that they will establish a foreign policy once they get in power. A political vehicle is, thus, being used to enforce the agenda of the government. It provides the Presidency and its relevant institutions with more powers over foreign policy. Additionally, George W. Bush is seen trumpeting on how his foreign policy worked in Iraq. The gesture partly attributes the ‘successes of the foreign policy to an individual and not to a body such as Congress.’ In essence, it is attributing success to George Bush both as a person and as the institution of the Presidency (Hastedt 177). The executive arm of the government under the President receives substantive information through the intelligence community on issues relating to foreign policy. The article has described microscopic input if any relating to foreign policy formulated by the Congress. The Presidency relied on intelligence reports during the invasion of the United States in Iraq (Pillar 14).The President sold the intelligence idea to the international community as well as to the American citizens to justify his entry into Iraq. Truth be told, the attack on Iraq was based on bad intelligence as the President and his inner circle are deemed to have acted independently. Emerging reports indicate that Iraq posed no terror threat to the United States. David (n. p,) argues that the Presidency served in reverse or provided a foggier picture to what the intelligence reports indicated. For example, President Bush claimed that the British government had learned that Saddam Hussein had obtained significant quantities of uranium in Africa. However, the intelligent reports provided evidence showing that the information had been obtained from forged documents. Additionally, the American Premier indicated that the Iraq government had prepared nerve gasses such as Sarin and VX, contrary to intelligence reports that showed no proof of such information (David 2). The majority of decisions that relate to foreign policy are more emphasized by the Presidency than the Congress. However, that does not mean that the Congress has no powers to make decisions regarding matters relating to foreign policy. It only means that the balance is …show more content…
For any special group to be able to influence the process of policy formulation authoritatively, it needs to have established a strong foundation. However, the United States case is quite different. Previously, special interest groups such as media houses did not influence policy administration. Rather, they played a role in supporting the already established information in the hands of the government. Common examples are cited in the way the media handled the matter relating to the killings in Somalia (Warren 174). It is reported that until 1992, only fifteen news items related to Somalia had been reported by the media houses. None of these had managed to capture atrocities that were committed in Somalia. People were being slaughtered like pigs, but the media was not there to provide substantial information required by the members of the public. The information could have readily swayed or influenced policy makers in the course of action to take in Somalia. However, this did not happen. It was not until the government decided to shift its attention to Somalia that the media saw the relevance of the story. The images of women and children suffering is what sparked public outcry on the atrocities that were being committed in Somalia. Public opinion becomes relevant if special interest groups such as the media can authoritatively report a given story. In this case, the media never set the agenda but awaited the government of the day to set the agenda (Hastedt