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London Sunday Times November 16, 2003
London Calling
Bush, Ambushed

Maybe this whole State visit idea was the brain-child of Michael Moore's book agent. The cover-image of Moore's latest book, "Dude, Where's My Country?" features a photo-shop image of a statue of president Bush being toppled just as Saddam's was laid low earlier this year in Baghdad. And next week exactly such a re-enactment is promised by the anti-war forces set to protest president George W. Bush's visit to Britain in Trafalgar Square. Call it a product tie-in. Or maybe it's a secret plot by the State Department to subject George W. Bush to such public relations horror that he'll soon realize the error of his neoconservative ways. That was the paranoid fantasy voiced last week by David Frum, Bush's neo-conservative former speech writer. "Suppose you were a senior State Department or CIA official interested in jolting the president away from the 'destabilizing' policies you oppose?" mused Frum. "You might try to stir up public and congressional pressure against him by carefully placed and timed press leaks. But if those subtle hints did not succeed, you might be tempted to squeeze harder. And what could hurt an American president worse than plunging him into three consecutive days worth of Chicago 1968 style mass protests? Then, on the plane-ride home, perhaps somebody might soothingly insinuate that his terrible reception really ought to be blamed on those hawkish advisers of his ..."

Of course, the conspiracy theory of history is almost always less true than the screw-up theory. The presidential trip that could paralyze London next week and give Tariq Ali the thrill of a lifetime was scheduled months and months ago. It was designed to showcase the surprising new life given to the Anglo-American relationship by the personal bond between president Bush and Tony Blair and by the remarkably effective military alliance that is now fighting for success in post-war Iraq. It was conceived to trumpet the most powerful bi-lateral relationship in the world right now, based in Washington but pivoting in London. It would also cement the aristocratic ties that the Bush family has long had with the Windsors - and perhaps provide some royal photo-ops for Bush's re-election campaign, in exactly the same way that Ronald Reagan did in 1984. Sounds good in theory. But it runs a high danger of being a public relations disaster in practice - for Bush, for Blair and for the royals. Unless, of course, the uproar against Bush is so extreme it backfires and the instinctive residue of British common sense manages to overcome the hysteria of the extremists.

Right now, that seems unlikely. Every single trope of anti-Americanism and anti-Bushism has already been deployed in advance of the visit. The self-parodic version was Rupert Cornwell's in the Independent last Sunday. Regurgitating every Internet urban legend about George W. Bush's verbal gaffes and every ill-informed critique of America, Cornwell turned in an Oscar-winning performance of Spartacist rhetoric. "Today's Washington," Cornwell informs us, "has a whiff of Soviet ways; suffocating internal discipline, resentment of even reasoned, moderate opposition, and a refusal to admit even the tiniest error. For imperialists, read 'evildoers'. With their condescending 'we know best' attitude, Messrs Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest offer as close an impersonation of the Politburo as you will find." This is strange. I live in Washington. Every day, I witness an extremely fraught, highly energized and increasingly shrill debate about foreign and domestic policy in every outlet available - from the cacophonous chaos of the Internet to talk radio, cable television and establishment media outlets. The notion that this kind of argument, in the heart of a country with more established rights of free speech than any in Europe, is somehow reminiscent of the former Soviet Union is simply bonkers.

Do the Bushies, as Cornwell complains, refuse to admit the tiniest error? Well, unlike the Blairites, they actually disowned one piece of pro-war evidence - the alleged purchase by Saddam of uranium from Niger - and endured a political roasting for it. Or look more generally at their record in Iraq. They have bobbed and weaved, despatched one pro-consul and installed another, shifted the timetable for Iraqi self-government numerous times, tried bringing in foreign troops, altered their predictions of their own troop levels, shifted tactics on dealing with Baathist insurgents, reorganized the chain of command in Washington, and on and on. For all this, they have been assailed for not having a plan. No, they haven't beaten their breasts and broadcast to the world when they have made mistakes. But what government does? But their adjustments bespeak an openness and flexibility that belie their critics. Donald Rumsfeld's recently leaked memo, for example, asking tough questions of himself and the Pentagon in the war on terror, was almost a text-book case of internal review and openness. And if they had had a fixed and unalterable plan and stuck with it through thick and thin, they would have been accused of being like the know-nothing, isolated Soviet rulers of Afghanistan. Of course, even with all their flexibility and muddling through, they are still compared to the know-nothing, isolated Soviet rulers of Afghanistan. Funny how the criticism is the same whatever they do, isn't it?

Do the Bushies have one remedy for every foreign policy problem: war? Then why has Bush gone out of his way to propose diplomatic pressure on North Korea and has disavowed military action against Iran? In an interview last Thursday, he was explicit about this: "Not every situation needs to be resolved through military action. And I would cite you North Korea and Iran ... The case in Iraq was unique." Does that sound like a regimented or militaristic approach to foreign policy to you? This is a president, after all, who appointed Colin Powell to the State Department as well as Donald Rumsfeld to the Pentagon.

Then there's the classic, world-weary Tory critique. You know the drill by now: Those Bushies, well-meaning chaps, just not very good at empire. And they keep deluding themselves that all those Arabs are capable of something called democracy. What piffle, the neo-Tory argument goes. All those brown people understand is a good crack of the ruler's whip. We shouldn't have invaded Iraq, but now we have, we should just find another dictator and get the hell out as soon as we can.

But again, this argument collapses upon inspection. After all, it's not as if this approach hasn't been tried - for decades. The old Tory policy of propping up faltering dictatorships and kleptocracies in the Middle East in return for oil was failing desperately by the 1970s, let alone the twenty-first century. All it did was encourage stifled opposition in those states to become more and more radicalized, intensified the movement toward extremist Islamic ideology, and fueled terrorism. For good measure, the tyrants of the region bought off domestic unrest by blaming all their woes on the evil Jews, adding anti-Semitic petrol to their autocratic fires. You can draw a straight line from these U.S. policies of the last half-century in the Middle East and the context in which Osama bin Laden grew and prospered. 9/11 showed that that policy had failed beyond measure. And regardless of what you believed or still believe about the legitimacy of the Iraq war, letting that country collapse now into chaos or another dictatorship would simply compound our problems, rather than alleviate them. The only way out of this mess is through it. And however some Tories are nostalgic for the British empire, only the Americans can now do the task.

So then you have the third, milder anti-Bush position: he's simply in way over his head. He's a moron, a Texas buffoon, illiterate, simplistic, and dangerous. Worse, he's some kind of born-again maniac whose main tool of policy prescription is getting down on his knees and thinking of Billy Graham. At some level, this caricature is so comforting, so easy to digest, so superficially true in some respects that it feels churlish to disabuse people of it. Brits like their Americans this way. It makes for great comedy sketches, even better jokes, and soothes the nagging worry that a country run by a certifiable idiot is still - somehow - the most vibrant, diverse and prosperous on the planet. After all, in the new century, it cannot be of that much comfort to Europeans that the one country that was decimated by a terrorist attack at the heart of its commercial capital has already leapt ahead economically of everyone else. If France's third quarter growth rate was 7.2 percent, it might make more sense. But, no. It's the country run by a moron, devastated two years ago by the worst act of war on its soil in history, and governed by know-nothing policies, that is doing so well. So, er ... let's make fun of the damage Bush does to the English language and compare him to Hitler. That will make us feel better.

You cannot reason someone out of an idea he was never reasoned into. But the truth is: no one who has dealt with George W. Bush personally sees him this way. Least of all Tony Blair. For a moron, Bush has a record in American politics that is truly striking: two terms as governor of a major state, and a presidency won on a technicality (when his incumbent opponent had all the advantages) that has yet seen him achieve ratings far better than his three predecessors at this point in their terms. Unlike the allegedly magisterial politician, Bill Clinton, Bush has also seen his own party gain traction and power under his presidency. He may even be on the verge of an historic realignment in American politics as the Republicans become the majority party for the first time in decades. Even his direst enemies in American politics do not view him as a political idiot. No, he's not reading Habermas in his off-hours. But neither did Truman.

And in political terms, he has one clear advantage. He is an easy man to deal with. He follows through. His sticks with policies through difficult times. There's a reason Tony Blair has come to like him more then he did Bill Clinton. Because you know where you are with George W. Bush. If he says he'll do something, he generally does. He fulfilled every promise to Tony Blair. He went to the U.N. over Iraq; he did everything he could to win international support for the war; he pursued the road-map between Israel and the Palestinians; and he won't cut and run in Iraq. The one thing you want in an ally is trustworthiness and reliability. On that front, even though he deserves criticism in some respects (on free trade, deficits, and sometimes excessive deference to Ariel Sharon), he has delivered on those things he promised. Compare that to the rank duplicity of Jacques Chirac or the shameless opportunism of Gerhard Schroder and you begin to see why Blair might actually get along with the Texas moron.

The small matter of religious faith also clearly rattles British and European secular opinion. That's understandable, given the very different nature of American and European culture. But in this sense, Bush is not a dramatic exception to the American rule. He is comfortable speaking about personal faith in ways most Americans find unremarkable but most Europeans find odd. But in terms of foreign policy, there is no evidence of this drastically affecting his judgment. He is never given credit for the many times he has emphatically defended Islam as a religion of peace and human dignity; no acknowledgment given to the fact that his main outreach in the 2000 campaign was to Muslim-Americans, not Jewish-Americans, who vote overwhelmingly for Democrats; and similar secularist sentiments were never as routinely expressed about the last born-again president, Jimmy Carter. The only precedent for this kind of contempt is Ronald Reagan. And from the vantage point of history, it's Reagan who now looks good compared to his sophisticated European critics.

But it's not Bush, some argue. It's his policies. But, again, the early objections now seem somewhat misplaced. Yes, he opted out of Kyoto. But Clinton never opted in. And the Senate under Clinton had voted 95 - 0 not to consider it. So why isn't Clinton tarred with the anti-Kyoto brush? The ABM treaty? Even the Russians went along in the end. Israel? Again, Bush inherited a collapsed policy, after Arafat walked away from Barak's historically generous offer at Camp David. And Bush tried hard to force the road-map last year. But Arafat again balked and the Palestinians won't or can't replace him with anyone else. Trade? There the critics are on firm ground. The steel tariffs are indefensible. Bush is worse than Clinton in this respect. But have you checked up on the Democrats lately? The protectionism Bush's opponents are supporting make this president look good.

Afghanistan? We have just seen a new constitution unveiled which both embraces Islam and protects religious minorities and women. If it weren't for Bush, the Taliban would still be in power. Iraq? One of the worst tyrants in history has been toppled, 300,000 mass graves discovered, the marshlands of Southern Iraq are coming back to life, the Kurds and Shia can plan democratic futures, and Bush's policy is still declared a disaster because a few thousand remnants of the old regime, combined with other regional terrorists, are still fighting! The notion that this policy has already failed relies on so raising the bar of success that only a miracle would pass muster. Come back in five years - the only reasonable time period by which to judge Iraq's reconstruction - and we'll talk. Meanwhile, some $20 billion of aid money is coming from American pockets to rebuild a country devastated by totalitarianism. And the architect of this astonishing act of humanitarianism is compared to Hitler in the streets of London. It makes no sense. None.

But what about Bush's violation of international norms of behavior? Didn't he invade a sovereign country without U.N. approval? Isn't that enough to foster intense loathing of this reckless president? If that is your argument, then you also have to ask yourself why president Clinton wasn't roasted at the stake as well. After all, he also launched a war without U.N. approval - in Kosovo. He did so with even less U.N. approval than George W. Bush in Iraq. Bush, after all, had the 1991 U.N. cease-fire agreement, which Saddam violated, he had umpteen violations of U.N. resolutions committed by Saddam, and he had last December's 15 - 0 Security Council resolution demanding unfettered and immediate cooperation by Saddam - or else. In Kosovo, Clinton had nothing like this international support - and had the threats of vetoes by China and Russia. But he went ahead and bombed anyway. Where were the mass demonstrations then? Where was Clinton burned in effigy? Why didn't London have to shut down because of all the protests against the lawless Americans? Hmmm.

In Kosovo, moreover, the Americans simply bombed from a great height. They didn't put their own sons and daughters at risk; they expended a fraction of the resources they are now sending to Iraq. Moreover, Milosevic's genocidal record was not as gruesome as Saddam's, he had not used weapons of mass destruction against his own population; and he had not tried to assassinate an American president. And yet that war was somehow deemed legitimate; and the current war beyond the pale. I have yet to find a single argument that persuasively shows why Kosovo was more legitimate under international norms than Iraq. Until we do hear such a case, it's fair to infer that some of this criticism is simply emotional and not rational. Or that it is bedeviled by so many double standards that it doesn't add up.

The final argument against Bush is that even if he is right, even if the war was justified, he is an incompetent. He can't get it right. There is a crisis in Iraq. He has alienated the allies and cannot bring this difficult occupation to a successful conclusion. There are not enough troops. The State Department and the Defense Department are at odds. Here's a good summary of the critique:

"Our experience with the Iraq occupation is a striking illustration of how a nation gets into trouble when it fails to balance its commitments and its power to carry them out... The one consideration which has been primary and controlling [the administration] ignored in making their plans. That was the size and the character of the military force which the United States could count on being able to maintain in Iraq. As a result, there is a widening and ever more unpleasant gap between what we have talked about doing in Iraq and what we are in fact able to do... Was it not then the duty of the Defense Department to prepare well in advance plans for recruiting and training a new and different kind of army -- one which could and would stay in Iraq and was trained not to fight the Iraqi army which would no longer exist but to police the Iraqis who were disarmed?"

"Our denazification policy is another example of the tug of war which has developed in the United States zone between our 'reconstructionists' and our 'revolutionaries.' The policy makers who were hell bent for revenge saw to it that our Army was ordered to arrest all officials of the Nazi Party 'down to and including local group leaders and officials of equivalent rank.' But the Nazi Party, at its peak, claimed more than 8,000,000 adherents, including the majority of skilled workers. A large number of the most skilled railroad workers, for example, are thus automatically included in our category of 'mandatory arrests.' However, it was imperative to get the railroads running again in order to supply food for the approximately 20,000,000 persons for whom our Army was responsible for this winter, including our own soldiers, displaced persons and German prisoners and civilians."

"Here in Germany there is no indication that Washington politicians have any clear conception of the precise purposes and probable duration of our German occupation. Our administrative machinery here is building up in a hit-or-miss fashion, and the men to run the machine are being recruited hastily and haphazardly, with almost no evidence of a coherent long range plan."