(Is the South China Sea Worth War?)

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Phạm Nguyên Trường dịch

The American Conservative

October 30, 2015, 12:01 AM

USS Lassen conducts exercises with Korean and Turkish navy ships.

U.S. Navy photo by Naval Air Crewman (Helicopter) 2nd Class Evan Kenny/Released

Tàu khu trục USS Lassen, theo sau là hai tàu chiến Trung Quốc, đi vào khu vực 12 hải lý của Subi Reef, một hòn đảo nhân tạo mà Trung Quốc tuyên bố là lãnh thổ quốc gia của mình. Bắc Kinh phản đối. Nói rằng: Subi Reef và quần đảo Trường Sa, ở biển Đông - 50% thương mại hàng hải quốc tế đi qua vùng này – là của chúng tôi cũng như quần đảo Aleutian là của quý vị vậy.

Tuyên bố chủ quyền của Bắc Kinh với quần đảo Trường Sa bị Việt Nam, Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines và Đài Loan thách thức. Trong khi Hà Nội và Manila chiếm đóng một số đảo nhỏ và xây dựng các công trình trên đó nhằm chống lưng cho những tuyên bố của mình thì Trung Quốc tỏ ra hung hăng hơn. Họ đã chiếm đóng các bãi đá và dải san hô bằng lực lượng vũ trang, tiến hành nạo vét và mở rộng thành các đảo nhân tạo, củng cố, lập các trạm rađa và đang xây dựng đường băng và bến cảng.

Dễ hiểu Trung Quốc muốn gì

Sau khi no nê và béo ú nhờ những khoản thặng dư thương mại với Mỹ, Trung Quốc đang chuyển sức mạnh kinh tế của họ thành sức mạnh quân sự và quyết đoán mang tính chiến lược mới. Họ muốn thống trị Đông Á và tất cả các vùng biển xung quanh khu vực này.

Họ bảo chúng ta rằng tàu chiến của chúng ta không được hoan nghênh ở biển Hoàng Hải và eo biển Đài Loan. Bắc Kinh cũng tuyên bố chủ quyền đối với quần đảo Senkaku mà Nhật đang giữ chiếm, quần đảo này nằm dưới cái ô của hiệp ước an ninh chung của chúng ta. Và biển Đông không chỉ là một trong những tuyến đường thủy quan trọng nhất thế giới, hải sản trong vùng này có thể nuôi sống các dân tộc và địa tầng bên dưới có các mỏ dầu và khí đốt lớn. Ai sở hữu những hòn đảo ở biển Đông cũng đồng thời sở hữu biển.

Hơn nữa, kể từ khi Eisenhower đe dọa sử dụng vũ khí hạt nhân nhằm bảo vệ Đài Loan và các đảo ngoài khơi Quemoy và Matsu - và kể từ khi Bill Clinton cho hai nhóm tàu chiến của Mỹ đi qua eo biển Đài Loan, thế giới của chúng ta đã thay đổi. Bây giờ chúng ta chỉ đưa một tàu khu trục vào bên trong khu vực 12 hải lý của một rạn san hô, mà gần đây vẫn chìm dưới nước khi thủy triều lên.

Hành động của Trung Quốc là hoàn toàn dễ hiểu. Họ đang bắt chước Mỹ khi chúng ta trở thành cường quốc đế quốc.

Sau khi chúng ta đẩy được Tây Ban Nha ra khỏi Cuba vào năm 1898, chúng ta sáp nhập Puerto Rico và quần đảo Hawaii, người Mỹ ở đó đã lật đổ nữ hoàng, chiếm đảo Wake và đảo Guam, và sau đó sáp nhập Philippines. Việc đàn áp phong trào kháng chiến Philippines kéo dài ba năm, với hàng ngàn lính thủy thiệt mạng.

Đây là phản ứng của tổng thống McKinley khi nhận được tin phi đội châu Á của chúng ta đã chiếm được những hòn đảo này:

Khi chúng tôi nhận được điện của đô đốc Dewey nói về việc chiếm được Philippines, tôi đã tìm vị trí của chúng trên quả địa cầu. Tôi không biết những hòn đảo này nằm ở đâu. 

Năm 1944, tướng MacArthur, cha ông này đã đập tan phong trào kháng chiến Philippines, đã tái chiếm những hòn đảo từ tay Nhật Bản, sau khi giành lại được Trân Châu Cảng. Vào giai đoạn cuối cuộc Chiến tranh Lạnh, Manila đã yêu cầu Mỹ rút khỏi căn cứ không quân Clark và căn cứ hải quân ở Subic Bay. Chúng ta đã làm theo lời họ. Bây giờ các bạn Philippines muốn chúng ta quay lại để thay họ đối đầu với Trung Quốc, những người Cộng sản Việt Nam ở Hà Nội cũng muốn như thế.

Trước khi chúng ta tham gia vào vụ tranh chấp này, trước khi chúng ta khởi động cuộc không chiến hay hải chiến với Trung Quốc, chúng ta phải đặt cho mình một số câu hỏi.

Thứ nhất, tại sao chúng ta lại dính vào vụ tranh cãi này? Chúng ta không có bất kỳ tuyên bố chủ quyền nào đối với quần đảo Trường Sa hay Hoàng Sa ở biển Đông. Nhưng, tất cả các bên  tranh chấp - Bắc Kinh, Đài Bắc, Manila, Hà Nội - dường như đều có những tấm bản đồ được lập cách đây nhiều thập kỷ và thậm chí nhiều thế kỷ nhằm hỗ trợ cho những tuyên bố chủ quyền của mình.

Ngoài tự do hàng hải, chúng ta còn có những lợi ích sống gì?

Nếu những quần đảo này là lãnh thổ của Trung Quốc, thì Bắc Kinh cũng có quyền xây dựng các căn cứ không quân và hải quân ở đó như chúng ta đã làm trên các quần đảo Aleutian, Hawaii, Wake và Guam. Mục đích của chúng ta là gì khi đưa tàu chiến của Mỹ vào khu vực mà Trung Quốc tuyên bố là lãnh hải của mình?

Trong khi tàu chiến của Hạm đội VII hùng mạnh hơn hẳn tàu của hải quân Trung Quốc, Trung Quốc lại có nhiều tàu ngầm, tàu khu trục và tàu tên lửa hơn, cộng với nhiều tên lửa trên mặt đất có thể tiêu diệt tàu chiến nằm ở khoảng cách rất xa.

Trên đất nước Trung Quốc, ngày càng có tinh thần dân tộc hơn, Tập Cận Bình không thể rút bớt những yêu sách của Trung Quốc hoặc tháo dỡ những công trình mà Bắc Kinh đã xây dựng ở biển Đông. Chủ tịch Tập dường như cũng cứng rắn chẳng khác gì tổng thống Putin. Nếu Mỹ tiếp tục cho máy bay bay qua hay cho hải quân xâm nhập vào vùng lãnh hải của những hòn đảo mà Trung Quốc tuyên bố có chủ quyền thì chắc chắn sẽ dẫn đến cuộc đụng độ vũ trang, tương tự như đã xảy ra gần đảo Hải Nam vào năm 2001.

Tiếp theo chúng ta sẽ làm gì?

Hiện nay Trung Quốc đang gặp rắc rối. Các lân bang lo sợ và không tin tưởng Trung Quốc. Nền kinh tế của nước này đã đánh mất tính năng động, còn Đảng Cộng sản thì đang bị xé nát bởi những vụ thanh trừng và tham nhũng tràn lan.

Nếu chúng ta tin rằng đây sẽ là thế kỷ của thứ II của Mỹ, rằng thời gian đứng về phía chúng ta, rằng chủ nghĩa cộng sản Trung Quốc là niềm tin đã chết từ lâu, chúng tôi phải tránh đụng độ và thể hiện sự phản đối của chúng ta với những hành động thái quá của Bắc Kinh bằng cách áp đặt thuế nhập khẩu đối với tất cả hàng hóa sản xuất tại Trung Quốc, nếu cần.

Giới lãnh đạo đầu sỏ củaTrung Quốc sẽ hiểu thông điệp.

Patrick J. Buchanan

Phạm Nguyên Trường dịch

Patrick J. Buchanan là tác giả cuốn The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority.

Is the South China Sea Worth War?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

The American Conservative

October 30, 2015, 12:01 AM

USS Lassen conducts exercises with Korean and Turkish navy ships.

U.S. Navy photo by Naval Air Crewman (Helicopter) 2nd Class Evan Kenny/Released

Trailed by two Chinese warships, the guided-missile destroyer USS Lassen sailed inside the 12-nautical-mile limit of Subi Reef, a man-made island China claims as her national territory. Beijing protested. Says China: Subi Reef and the Spratly Island chain, in a South China Sea that carries half of the world’s seaborne trade, are as much ours as the Aleutians are yours.

Beijing’s claim to the Spratlys is being contested by Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Taiwan. While Hanoi and Manila have occupied islets and built structures to back their claims, the Chinese have been more aggressive. They have occupied rocks and reefs with troops, dredged and expanded them into artificial islands, fortified them, put up radars, and are building air strips and harbors.

What the Chinese are about is easy to understand.

Having feasted and grown fat on trade surpluses with the United States, the Chinese are translating their economic strength into military power and a new strategic assertiveness. They want to dominate East Asia and all the seas around it.

We have been told our warships are unwelcome in the Yellow Sea and the Taiwan Strait. Beijing also claims the Senkakus that Japan occupies, which are covered by our mutual security treaty. And not only is the South China Sea one of the world’s crucial waterways, the fish within can feed nations and the floor below contains vast deposits of oil and gas. Who owns the islands in the South China Sea owns the sea.

Moreover, our world has changed since Eisenhower threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend Taiwan and the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu—and since Bill Clinton sent two U.S. carrier battle groups through the Taiwan Strait. Now we send a lone destroyer inside the 12-mile limit of a reef that, until recently, was under water at high tide.

What China is doing is easily understandable. She is emulating the United States as we emerged to become an imperial power.

After we drove Spain out of Cuba in 1898, we annexed Puerto Rico and the Hawaiian Islands, where American settlers had deposed the queen, took Wake and Guam, and annexed the Philippines. The subjugation of Filipino resistance required a three-year war and thousands of dead Marines.

And the reaction of President McKinley when he heard our Asian squadron had seized the islands:

When we received the cable from Admiral Dewey telling of the taking of the Philippines I looked up their location on the globe. I could not have told where those darned islands were within 2,000 miles.

In 1944, General MacArthur, whose father had crushed the Filipino resistance, retook the islands from the Japanese who had occupied them after Pearl Harbor. At the end of the Cold War, however, Manila ordered the United States to get out of Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay naval base. We did as told. Now our Filipino friends want us back to confront China for them, as do the Vietnamese Communists in Hanoi.

Before we get ourselves into the middle of their dispute, before we find ourselves in an air war or naval clash with China, we ought to ask ourselves a few questions.

First, why is this our quarrel? We have no claim to any of the Spratly or Paracel Islands in the South China Sea. Yet, each of the claimants—Beijing, Taipei, Manila, Hanoi—seems to have maps going back decades and even centuries to support those claims.

Besides freedom of the seas, what is our vital interest here?

If these islands are Chinese territory, Beijing has the same right to build air and naval bases on them as we do in the Aleutians, Hawaii, Wake, and Guam. What do we hope to accomplish by sailing U.S. warships into what China claims to be her territorial waters?

While the ships of the U.S. Seventh Fleet are superior to those of the Chinese navy, China has more submarines, destroyers, frigates, and missile boats, plus a vast inventory of ground-based missiles that can target warships at great distances.

In an increasingly nationalist China, Xi Jinping could not survive a climbdown of China’s claims, or dismantlement of what Beijing has built in the South China Sea. President Xi no more appears to be a man to back down than does President Putin. Continued U.S. overflights or naval intrusion into the territorial waters of Chinese-claimed islands are certain to result in a violent clash, as happened near Hainan Island in 2001.

Where would we go from there?

China today is in trouble. She is feared and distrusted by her neighbors; her economy has lost its dynamism; and the Communist Party is riven by purges and rampant corruption.

If we believe this will be the Second American Century, that time is on our side, that Chinese communism is a dead faith, we ought to avoid a clash and show our opposition to Beijing’s excesses, if need be, by imposing tariffs on all goods made in China.

China’s oligarchs will understand that message.

Patrick J. Buchanan

Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From Defeat to Create the New Majority. (The American Conservative).

Patrick Joseph "Pat" Buchanan (/bjuːˈkænɨn/; born November 2, 1938) is an American paleoconservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician and broadcaster. Buchanan was a senior advisor to U.S. Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan, and was an original host on CNN's Crossfire. He sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1992 and 1996. He ran on the Reform Party ticket in the 2000 presidential election.

He co-founded The American Conservative magazine and launched a foundation named The American Cause.[1] He has been published in Human Events, National Review, The Nation, and Rolling Stone. He was a political commentator on the MSNBC cable network, including the show Morning Joe until February 2012. Buchanan is a regular on The McLaughlin Group and now appears on Fox News.

Early life and education:

Buchanan was born in Washington, D.C., a son of William Baldwin Buchanan (Virginia, August 13, 1905 – Washington, D.C., January 1988), a partner in an accounting firm, and his wife Catherine Elizabeth (Crum) Buchanan (Charleroi, Washington County, Pennsylvania, December 23, 1911 – Oakton, Fairfax County, Virginia, September 18, 1995), a nurse and a homemaker. Buchanan had six brothers (Brian, Henry, James, John, Thomas, and William Jr.) and two sisters (Kathleen Theresa and Angela Marie, nicknamed Bay). Bay served as U.S. Treasurer under Ronald Reagan. His father was of English, Irish, and Scottish descent, and his mother was of German ancestry. He had a great-grandfather who fought in the American Civil War in the Confederate Army, which is why he is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and admires Robert E. Lee.

Of his southern roots, Buchanan has written:

I have family roots in the South, in Mississippi. When the Civil War came, Cyrus Baldwin enlisted and did not survive Vicksburg. William Buchanan of Okolona, who would marry Baldwin’s daughter, fought at Atlanta and was captured by General Sherman. William Baldwin Buchanan was the name given to my father and by him to my late brother.

As a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, I have been to their gatherings. I spoke at the 2001 SCV convention in Lafayette, LA. The Military Order of the Stars and Bars presented me with a battle flag and a wooden canteen like the ones my ancestors carried.

Buchanan was born into a Catholic family and attended Catholic schools, including the Jesuit-run Gonzaga College High School. As a student at Georgetown University, he was in ROTC but did not complete the program. He received his draft notice after he graduated in 1960. However, the District of Columbia draft board exempted Buchanan from military service because of reactive arthritis, classifying him as 4-F. He received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1962, writing his thesis on the expanding trade between Canada and Cuba.

Professional career:

St. Louis Globe-Democrat Editorial Writer:

Buchanan joined the St. Louis Globe-Democrat at age 23. During the first year of the United States embargo against Cuba in 1961, Canada–Cuba trade tripled. The Globe-Democrat published a rewrite of Buchanan's Columbia master's project under the eight-column banner "Canada sells to Red Cuba — And Prospers" eight weeks after Buchanan started at the paper. According to Buchanan's memoir Right from the Beginning, this article was a career milestone. However, Buchanan later said the embargo strengthened the communist regime and he turned against it.[9] Buchanan was promoted to assistant editorial page editor in 1964 and supported Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign. However, the Globe-Democrat did not endorse Goldwater and Buchanan speculated there was a clandestine agreement between the paper and President Lyndon B. Johnson. Buchanan recalled: "The conservative movement has always advanced from its defeats... I can't think of a single conservative who was sorry about the Goldwater campaign." According to the foreword (written by Pat Buchanan) in the most recent edition of Conscience of a Conservative, Buchanan was a member of the Young Americans for Freedom and wrote press releases for that organization. He served as an executive assistant in the Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie, Alexander, and Mitchell law offices in New York City in 1965.

Work for the Nixon White House:

The next year, he was the first adviser hired by Nixon's presidential campaign;[10] he worked primarily as an opposition researcher. For his speeches aimed at dedicated supporters, he was soon nicknamed "Mr. Inside."

Buchanan traveled with Richard Nixon throughout the campaigns of 1966 and 1968. He made a tour of Western Europe, Africa and, in the immediate aftermath of the Six-Day War, the Middle East. When Nixon took the Oval Office in 1969, Buchanan worked as a White House adviser and speechwriter for Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew. Buchanan coined the phrase "Silent Majority," and helped shape the strategy that drew millions of Democrats to Nixon. In a 1972 memo, he suggested the White House "should move to re-capture the anti-Establishment tradition or theme in American politics." His daily assignments included developing political strategy, publishing the President's Daily News Summary, and preparing briefing books for news conferences. He accompanied Nixon on his trip to China in 1972 and the summit in Moscow, Yalta and Minsk in 1974. He suggested that Nixon label Democratic opponent George McGovern an extremist and burn the White House tapes.

Buchanan remained as a special assistant to Nixon through the final days of the Watergate scandal. He was not accused of wrongdoing, though some mistakenly suspected him of being Deep Throat. When the actual identity of the press leak was revealed as Federal Bureau of Investigation Associate Director Mark Felt in 2005, Buchanan called him "sneaky," "dishonest" and "criminal." Because of his role in the Nixon campaign's "attack group," Buchanan appeared before the Senate Watergate Committee on September 26, 1973. He told the panel:

The mandate that the American people gave to this president and his administration cannot, and will not, be frustrated or repealed or overthrown as a consequence of the incumbent tragedy.

When Nixon resigned in 1974, Buchanan briefly stayed on as special assistant under incoming President Gerald Ford. Chief of Staff Alexander Haig approved Buchanan's appointment as ambassador to South Africa, but Ford refused it.

Buchanan remarked about Watergate:

The lost opportunity to move against the political forces frustrating the expressed national will.... To effect a political counterrevolution in the capital —... there is no substitute for a principled and dedicated man of the Right in the Oval Office.

Long after his resignation, Nixon called Buchanan a confidant and said he was neither a racist nor an antisemite nor a bigot or "hater," but a "decent, patriotic American." Nixon said Buchanan had "some strong views," such as his "isolationist" foreign policy, with which he disagreed. While Nixon did not think Buchanan should become president, he said the commentator "should be heard."[14][15]

News commentator:

Unbalanced scales.svg

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (April 2011)

Buchanan returned to his column and began regular appearances as a broadcast host and political commentator. He co-hosted a three-hour daily radio show with liberal columnist Tom Braden called the Buchanan-Braden Program. He delivered daily commentaries on NBC radio from 1978 to 1984. Buchanan started his TV career as a regular on The McLaughlin Group and CNN's Crossfire (inspired by Buchanan-Braden) and The Capital Gang, making him nationally recognizable. His several stints on Crossfire occurred between 1982 and 1999; his sparring partners included Braden, Michael Kinsley, Geraldine Ferraro, and Bill Press.

Buchanan is a regular panelist on The McLaughlin Group. He appears most Sundays alongside John McLaughlin and the more liberal Newsweek journalist Eleanor Clift. On The McLaughlin Group Buchanan has made such comments as “‘Capitol Hill is Israeli occupied territory’ and ‘If you want to know ethnicity and power in the United States Senate, 13 members of the Senate are Jewish folks who are from 2 percent of the population. That is where real power is at…’” His columns are syndicated nationally by Creators Syndicate.

Accusations of antisemitism and Holocaust denial:

Buchanan has written about the Holocaust. For example, Buchanan wrote that it was impossible for 850,000 Jews to be killed by diesel exhaust fed into the gas chamber at Treblinka.[18] Such statements have led to accusations that he has helped legitimize Holocaust denial. When George Will challenged him about it on TV, Buchanan did not reply. In 1983, he criticized the U.S. government for expressing regret over its postwar protection of Klaus Barbie.[citation needed] In 1985, Buchanan advocated restoring the citizenship of Arthur Rudolph, an ex-Nazi rocket scientist accused of employing slave labor at a V-2 plant.[citation needed] In 1987, Buchanan lobbied to stop deportation of Karl Linnas, accused of atrocities in Estonia.[citation needed] In 1991 William F. Buckley, Jr. wrote a 40,000-word National Review article discussing anti-Semitism among conservative commentators focused largely on Buchanan; the article and many responses to it were collected in the book In Search of Anti-Semitism (1992). He concluded: "I find it impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination amounted to anti-Semitism."

The Anti-Defamation League has called Buchanan an "unrepentant bigot" who "repeatedly demonizes Jews and minorities and openly affiliates with white supremacists." "There's no doubt," said Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Charles Krauthammer, "he makes subliminal appeals to prejudice." Buchanan has adamantly denied that he is antisemitic, and a number of conservatives and his journalistic colleagues, some of them Jewish, including Joe Sobran, Murray Rothbard, Justin Raimondo Jack Germond, Al Hunt and Mark Shields, have defended him against the charge. It is alleged that, as a member of the Reagan White House, he actively suppressed the Reagan Justice Department's investigation into Nazi scientists brought to America by the OSS's Operation Paperclip. In the context of the Gulf War, on September 15, 1990, Buchanan appeared on The McLaughlin Group and said that "there are only two groups that are beating the drums for war in the Middle East – the Israeli defense ministry and its 'amen corner' in the United States." He also said: "The Israelis want this war desperately because they want the United States to destroy the Iraqi war machine. They want us to finish them off. They don't care about our relations with the Arab world." When he delivered a keynote address at the 1992 Republican National Convention, known as the Culture War speech, Buchanan described "a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America".

Work for the Reagan White House:

Buchanan served as White House Communications Director from February 1985 to March 1987. Buchanan supported President Reagan's plan to visit a German military cemetery at Bitburg in 1985, where among buried Wehrmacht soldiers were the graves of 48 Waffen SS members. At the insistence of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and over the vocal objections of Jewish groups, the trip went through although White House officials sought to minimize the effect of the visit. As Mr. Reagan left Bonn for Bergen-Belsen in the morning, officials disclosed that the President and Mr. Kohl would be joined at Bitburg by two prominent retired American and German military officers. The men were Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway, 90 years old, who had led the 82d Airborne Division in Europe and later fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and Lieut. Gen. Johannes Steinhoff, 71, a Luftwaffe flying ace who later rose to the highest ranks of the West German Air Force. After the wreath laying ceremony at the military cemetery, the two men shook hands.

In an interview, author Elie Wiesel described attending a White House meeting of Jewish leaders about the trip:

The only one really defending the trip was Pat Buchanan, saying, 'We cannot give the perception of the President being subjected to Jewish pressure.'

Buchanan accused Wiesel of fabricating the story in an ABC interview in 1992:

I didn't say it and Elie Wiesel wasn't even in the meeting.[... That meeting was held three weeks before the Bitburg summit was held. If I had said that, it would have been out of there within hours and on the news.

In a speech to the National Religious Broadcasters in 1986, Buchanan said about the "Reagan Revolution,"

Whether President Reagan has charted a new course that will set our compass for decades—or whether history will see him as the conservative interruption in a process of inexorable national decline—is yet to be determined.

A year later, he remarked that "the greatest vacuum in American politics is to the right of Ronald Reagan." While her brother was working for Reagan, Bay Buchanan started a "Buchanan for President" movement in June 1986. She said the conservative movement needed a leader, but Buchanan was initially ambivalent. After leaving the White House, he returned to his column and Crossfire. Out of respect for Jack Kemp he sat out the 1988 race, although Kemp later became his adversary.

VDARE:

Buchanan has contributed to VDARE since 2005.

VDARE is a right wing website and blog founded by anti-immigration activist and paleoconservative Peter Brimelow. VDARE is considered controversial because of its alleged ties to white supremacist rhetoric and support of scientific racism and white nationalism. It has been designated as a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Political career:

1992 presidential primaries:

Main article: Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1992

In 1990, Buchanan published a newsletter called Patrick J. Buchanan: From the Right; it sent subscribers a bumper sticker reading: "Read Our Lips! No new taxes."

In 1992, Buchanan explained his reasons for challenging the incumbent, President George H.W. Bush:

If the country wants to go in a liberal direction, if the country wants to go in the direction of [Democrats] George Mitchell and Tom Foley, it doesn't bother me as long as I've made the best case I can. What I can't stand are the back-room deals. They're all in on it, the insider game, the establishment game—this is what we're running against.

He ran on a platform of immigration reduction and social conservatism, including opposition to multiculturalism, abortion, and gay rights. Buchanan seriously challenged Bush (whose popularity was waning) when he won 38 percent of the seminal New Hampshire primary. In the primary elections, Buchanan garnered three million total votes.

Buchanan later threw his support behind Bush and delivered a keynote address at the 1992 Republican National Convention, which became known as the culture war speech, in which he described "a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America." In the speech, he said of Bill and Hillary Clinton:

‘The agenda Clinton & Clinton would impose on America—abortion on demand, a litmus test for the Supreme Court, homosexual rights, discrimination against religious schools, women in combat units—that's change, all right. But it is not the kind of change America needs. It is not the kind of change America wants. And it is not the kind of change we can abide in a nation we still call God's country.

The enthusiastic applause he received prompted his detractors to claim that the speech alienated moderates from the Bush-Quayle ticket.

Off the campaign trail:

Buchanan returned to his column and Crossfire. To promote the principles of federalism, traditional values, and anti-intervention, he founded The American Cause, a conservative educational foundation, in 1993. Bay Buchanan serves as the Vienna, VA-based foundation's president and Pat is its chairman.

Buchanan returned to radio as host of Buchanan and Company, a three-hour talk show for Mutual Broadcasting System on July 5, 1993. It pitted him against liberal co-hosts, including Barry Lynn, Bob Beckel, and Chris Matthews, in a time slot opposite Rush Limbaugh's show. To launch his 1996 campaign, Buchanan left the program on March 20, 1995.

1996 presidential primaries:

Main article: Republican Party (United States) presidential primaries, 1996

1996 saw Buchanan's most successful attempt to win the Republican nomination. With a Democratic President (Bill Clinton) seeking re-election, there was no incumbent Republican with a lock on the ticket. Indeed, with former President George H. W. Bush having made clear he was not interested in re-gaining the office, the closest the party had to a front-runner was the Senate Majority leader Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, who was considered to have many weaknesses. Buchanan sought the Republican nomination from Dole's right, voicing his opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Other candidates for the nomination included Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, former Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexander and the multi-millionaire publisher Steve Forbes.

In February, the liberal Center for Public Integrity issued a report claiming Buchanan's presidential campaign co-chairman, Larry Pratt, appeared at two meetings organized by white supremacist and militia leaders. Pratt denied any tie to racism, calling the report an orchestrated smear before the New Hampshire primary. Buchanan told the Manchester Union Leader he believed Pratt. Pratt took a leave of absence "to answer these charges," "so as not to have distraction in the campaign."

Buchanan defeated Senator Bob Dole by about 3,000 votes to win the February New Hampshire primary, getting his campaign off to an energetic start. He was endorsed by conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly among others. He won three other states (Alaska, Missouri, and Louisiana), and finished only slightly behind Dole in the Iowa caucus. His insurgent campaign used his soaring rhetoric to mobilize grass-roots right wing opinion against what he saw as the bland Washington establishment (personified by Dole) which he believed had controlled the party for years. At a rally later in Nashua, he said:

“We shocked them in Alaska. Stunned them in Louisiana. Stunned them in Iowa. They are in a terminal panic. They hear the shouts of the peasants from over the hill. All the knights and barons will be riding into the castle pulling up the drawbridge in a minute. All the peasants are coming with pitchforks. We're going to take this over the top”.

The line "The peasants are coming with pitchforks" became somewhat of a slogan for the campaign, with Buchanan occasionally appearing with a prop pitchfork at rallies.

In the Super Tuesday primaries, however, Dole defeated Buchanan by large margins. Having collected only 21 percent of the total votes in Republican primaries, Buchanan suspended his campaign in March. He declared however that, if Dole were to choose a pro-choice running mate, he would run as the US Taxpayers Party (now Constitution Party) candidate. However, Dole chose Jack Kemp and he received Buchanan's endorsement. After the 1996 campaign, Buchanan returned to his column and Crossfire. He also began a series of books with 1998's The Great Betrayal.

2000 presidential campaign

Main articles: Reform Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2000 and Pat Buchanan presidential campaign, 2000

Buchanan announced his departure from the Republican Party in October 1999, disparaging them (along with the Democrats) as a "beltway party." He sought the nomination of the Reform Party. Many reformers backed Iowa physicist John Hagelin, whose platform was based on Transcendental Meditation. Party founder Ross Perot did not endorse either candidate for the Reform Party's nomination. (In late October, 2000, Perot publicly endorsed George W. Bush; however, Perot's 1996 running-mate, Pat Choate, would go on to endorse Buchanan.)

Supporters of Hagelin charged the results of the party's open primary, which favored Buchanan by a wide margin, were "tainted." The Reform Party divisions led to dual conventions being held simultaneously in separate areas of the Long Beach Convention Center complex. Both conventions' delegates ignored the primary ballots and voted to nominate their presidential candidates from the floor, similar to the Democratic and Republican conventions. One convention nominated Buchanan while the other backed Hagelin, with each camp claiming to be the legitimate Reform Party.

Ultimately, when the Federal Elections Commission ruled Buchanan was to receive ballot status as the Reform candidate, as well as about $12.6 million in federal campaign funds secured by Perot's showing in the 1996 election, Buchanan won the nomination. In his acceptance speech, Buchanan proposed US withdrawal from the United Nations and expelling the UN from New York, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Housing and Urban Development, taxes on inheritance and capital gains, and affirmative action programs.

As his running mate, Buchanan chose African-American activist and retired teacher from Los Angeles, Ezola B. Foster. Buchanan was supported in this election run by future Socialist Party USA presidential candidate Brian Moore, who said in 2008 he supported Buchanan in 2000 because "he was for fair trade over free trade. He had some progressive positions that I thought would be helpful to the common man." On August 19, the New York Right to Life Party, in convention, chose Buchanan as their nominee, with 90 percent of the districts voting for him.

In a campaign speech at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, Buchanan attempted to rally his conservative base:

God and the Ten Commandments have all been expelled from the public schools. Christmas carols are out. Christmas holidays are out. The latest decision of the United States Supreme Court said that children in stadiums or young people in high school games are not to speak an inspirational moment for fear they may mention God's name, and offend an atheist in the grandstand.

We may not succeed, but I believe we need a new fighting conservative traditionalist party in America. I believe, and I hope that one day we can take America back. That is why we are building this Gideon's army and heading for Armageddon, to do battle for the Lord.

In the 2000 presidential election, Buchanan finished fourth with 449,895 votes, 0.4% of the popular vote. (Hagelin garnered 0.1 percent as the Natural Law candidate.) In Palm Beach County, Florida, Buchanan received 3,407 votes—which some saw as inconsistent with Palm Beach County's liberal leanings, its large Jewish population and his showing in the rest of the state. As a result of the county's now-infamous "butterfly ballot", he is suspected to have gained thousands of inadvertent votes. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer stated, "Palm Beach county is a Pat Buchanan stronghold and that's why Pat Buchanan received 3,407 votes there." However, Reform Party officials strongly disagreed, estimating the number of supporters in the county at between 400 and 500. Appearing on The Today Show, Buchanan said:

When I took one look at that ballot on Election Night... it's very easy for me to see how someone could have voted for me in the belief they voted for Al Gore.

Some observers said his campaign was aimed to spread his message beyond his white conservative and populist base, while his views had not changed.

In retrospect, Buchanan told The Daily Caller explicitly in October 2012 that "What cost Al Gore Florida in 2000, and the presidency, was the 'butterfly ballot'".

Later political involvement:

Following the 2000 election, Reform Party members urged Buchanan to take an active role within the party. Buchanan declined, though he did attend their 2001 convention. In the next few years, he identified himself as a political independent, choosing not to align himself with what he viewed as the neo-conservative Republican party leadership. Prior to the 2004 election, Buchanan announced he once again identified himself as a Republican, declared that he had no interest in ever running for president again, and reluctantly endorsed Bush's 2004 re-election, writing:

“Bush is right on taxes, judges, sovereignty, and values. Kerry is right on nothing”.

Buchanan also endorsed Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012, stating in an article that "Obama offers more of the stalemate America has gone through for the past two years" while "Romney alone offers a possibility of hope and change.

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