The X2 Guide to US Foreign Policy

by James Norton

Americans tend to struggle with foreign policy.

But a seemingly infinite war on terror has upped the ante and made this once esoteric topic important again. And while most Americans have been wrestling with Middle Eastern Geography 101 and the number of US flag decals it takes to make an SUV "patriotic," the foreign policy establishment has been arguing over a fundamental issue of threat perception and military action that we had all better understand.

Thank God for the new X-Men movie.

Clearly illuminated by the overproduced but brilliantly entertaining folds of X2 is the foreign policy dilemma that has divided Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and their neoconservative pals from the more moderate group of thinkers that surround Colin Powell's State Department and the CIA.

The question, in a nutshell: Do we live in a black-and-white world, or a world composed of a thousand shades of gray?

The baddies of X2 act with a moral clarity and martial drive that Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld must envy. Military bigwig William Stryker perceives a final conflict on the horizon between mutants and humans. Failing to see any possible compromise, he starts a genocidal war against all mutants, everywhere.

Erik Lensherr, the magnetically gifted but sinister mutant intellectual known as Magneto, sees the conflict in very similar terms, and is equally determined to triumph against the implacable human enemy through violent means.

This is an attitude that the Bush administration can groove to and rally behind. In less than one term in office, the Bushies have created an "Axis of Evil," alienated most of the European Union, fought two medium-sized foreign wars and set the stage for at least three more.

In the eyes of Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Magneto and Stryker, you're either with us or against us. You're either a mutant, or a human. A terrorist state or a US ally. A friend to be loyally defended, or an enemy to be hunted down — and eradicated. Diplomacy isn't a conversational dance to extract concessions or find a shared solution; it's another way to wage war.

Professor Charles Xavier and Colin Powell, on the other hand, would rather see if things can be worked out. Both understand that there is a place for negotiation and compromise. Both understand that to paint an entire race — or arbitrary stack of countries — as "the enemy" can have dramatic and negative long-term consequences.

And both find themselves arguing for moderation in a time of wild hysteria, fear, mutual distrust and anger.

In X2, an attempt on the president's life by a mutant sets the climate of fear that empowers Stryker's crusade. Like Sept. 11, the assassination attempt was a violent, underhanded act that validated the worst fears of the black-and-whiters.

And like Sept. 11, the attack sets off a firestorm of argument and infighting on both "teams" as to the proper response. Do we go all out and gear up for an unending war? Or hold back, hoping that someone on the other side will listen to reason?

Certainly other films before X2 have tackled the issue of whether to hit 'em hard or talk it out. But for many (like The Godfather), it's a tactical consideration. Do we have the muscle to make the hit? If not, then we talk. (i.e., if the old man dies, you make the deal.)

In X2 and the corridors of Washington, the question is more philosophical — how does one define "enemy," anyway? Can you really negotiate with someone bent on the destruction of America itself? Where does venomous rhetoric end and deadly intent begin?

Everyone agrees that you should kill a snake if you're strong enough and it's threatening you. The question is: How far out of your way do you go when you're out crushing serpents? Do you only strike Al Qaeda and its direct sponsors — or, in X2, the specific mutants directly responsible for anti-human attacks — or do you strike countries throughout the Middle East and go after every mutant on the planet?

The message of X2 would warm the heart of the US State Department; the black-and-whiters are the bad guys, destructive, vicious and short-sighted. At the film's end, the extremists are dead or on the run, and there is a meeting of the minds between the mutants and humans.

But whether you applaud the strength of the Bush administration or denounce its foreign policy excesses, X2 will give you a brilliantly visceral — and hella entertaining — frame of reference for the intellectual food fight that's dominating the pages of Foreign Policy and The New York Times.

Plus, it's got Wolverine.

E-mail James Norton at jrnorton@flakmag.com.