ABSTRACT
George H. W. Bush administration regarded its crushing victory over Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis in 1988 reason enough to seek more pragmatic solutions to foreign policy problems without having to worry much about the indignation it might incur with the Republican Party’s ideological right. To Mexico and the South American countries Bush offered debt relief; in Central America, he opted for negotiation rather than military confrontation. At the outset, Bush, like Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan before him, tended to focus only on one issue, in his case how to get out of the Central American imbroglio. The absence of any great ideological scheme allowed space for Central America to find its own solutions. While Bush undoubtedly had greater foreign policy experience than any other president elected in at least half a century, domestic political considerations probably motivated his order to invade Panama.
