Bush postmortem
Jan. 16th, 2009 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tagrynIf you are expecting this to be a final F.U. to Bush on his way out the door, you may as well move on; go read Kinsley or Elf! or Foglio if you want that, goodness knows there's enough of that out there. For an balanced criticism of the Bush administration, read McCain's comments during the campaign. For a defense of their actions, I suggest reading Jay Nordlinger's interview excerpts with both Bush and with Dick Cheney. Even if you disagree with almost everything they have done, it is valuable to read these to try and understand the rationale behind their decisions. Simply dismissing Bush/Cheney as evil or stupid doesn't work...and as Chris Hitchens said here, Bush IQ jokes have become a cheap ad hominem worth little anymore.
So, my own thoughts.
In thinking about Bush's administration, there's one salient point that comes to mind: September 11th, 2001 changed everything. Bush came in hoping to be a mainly domestic-focused Presidency - remember Bush saying during the 2000 campaign how we needed to avoid using the military for nation-building? - but after 9/11 one priority overrode everything: don't let another terrorist attack happen here. And I do think that this led to Iraq, but not in the way its usually posited.
I think people have mostly forgotten exactly how difficult the problem of figuring out how to react to 9/11 was in the months following the attack. Sure, the Afghanistan operation wasn't even a question (although our continued involvement there is looking more and more like the quagmire Iraq was declared to be - topic for another post). In late 2001-early 2002 there was a scramble to understand al-Qaeda, and what forces had caused it to emerge. Clearly, merely dealing with AQ as a minor criminal group which could be sufficiently dealt with using cruise missiles and police techniques had failed terribly, and a new approach had to be tried.
I think what Bush and his advisers settled on was that behind 9/11, at a fundamental level, was the nature of the oppressive governments in the Middle East, and the resulting resentment and tension that bred. And sitting in the center of the Middle East was Iraq, a great "black hole" of dictatorship under Saddam which was destabilizing the area and had also become a dedicated enemy to the United States after Gulf War I. Furthermore, 9/11 had brought home that the U.S. mainland could be hit, and therefore the issue of weapons of mass destruction had to be taken into account. Transforming Iraq from an enemy state which the intel suggested had at the least a keen interest in developing WMDs, into a democratic state which could serve as a beacon to the rest of the region and thereby remedy the forces which had helped create al-Qaeda, was a long-shot Hail Mary, but we didn't have a whole lot of options at that point. Sanctions were collapsing, and Saddam was becoming increasingly belligerent and more resistant to continuing WMD inspections. As it turned out, the invasion itself went off even better than the Pentagon and Administration had hoped, but the follow-up occupation and rebuilding was massively botched (oddly enough, as the pre-9/11 Bush himself probably would have predicted it would be - see above re: using the military for nation-building) - disbanding the Iraqi army and the de-Ba'athification project under Bremer were very idealistic, but without those two events, the insurgency never gets its sea legs - and Iraq was only redeemed much later by Petraeus and his understanding of how counter-insurgency needed to work.
In retrospect, Bush's downfall was that he trusted too much, and was loyal to the end to those he thought were worthy of it. His style was to look someone in the eye, and if he judged that he could trust that person, he'd rely on that person and stand up for them. We saw this in June 2006, when Bush left abruptly from a Camp David meeting which was supposed to be a review of war strategy to go meet al-Maliki in person. This was Bush's leadership style, very personal and one-on-one, and in many cases where he picked the right person for the job, like Petraeus, it worked very well. Unfortunately, this also meant that Bush had a blind spot and didn't perform due diligence on someone once he thought he had the right person for the job. Examples of this were continuing to see Putin as someone he could work with even after VP had indicated he saw the U.S. as a rival rather than an ally; putting Bremer in charge in Iraq and providing very little oversight; and the "you're doing a great job, Brownie" comment during Katrina, when in fact FEMA was caught by surprise by the Katrina levy collapses. In the end, what was one of his best personal attributes didn't serve him well as POTUS.
Despite what his haters want to believe, Bush did have a significant number of major accomplishments. First, of course, is that there were no terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland after 9-11. I think the next time we're hit - and there will be a next time, inevitably - the tone on Bush will start trending towards "well, at least he kept us safe." Bush also did much more for Africa than any previous President. Surprisingly for all the bad press he received from environmentalists, Bush protected more ocean territory than any previous POTUS. The expansion of faith-based organizations' charitable work under Bush's initiative was something that even McCain praised him for. Iraq was a failure for a long time, but the surge strategy has turned things around to the point that we can withdraw and leave behind a relatively successful state by Middle East standards. Even a non-supporter admitted there were some good things that came out of Bush's time as President.
In the end, Bush will likely end up like Truman: wildly unpopular at the end of his term, but recognized much later as a successful President who did what he had to under trying times, even though it made him hated by many at the time. Often, appreciation comes only in the context of seeing what came after, and to be sure, there's a lot that we probably don't know regarding what's happened in the past seven years regarding the secret side of the war on terror that won't come out for many years. Or, to put it another way, "You don't know what hasn't gotten to you."( Lucien Celine, The Serpent and the Rainbow.) Bush himself recognized this when he said about his legacy "I'll be dead when they finally figure it out."
Unfortunately for him, he's probably right. Such is the fortune of history.
So, my own thoughts.
In thinking about Bush's administration, there's one salient point that comes to mind: September 11th, 2001 changed everything. Bush came in hoping to be a mainly domestic-focused Presidency - remember Bush saying during the 2000 campaign how we needed to avoid using the military for nation-building? - but after 9/11 one priority overrode everything: don't let another terrorist attack happen here. And I do think that this led to Iraq, but not in the way its usually posited.
I think people have mostly forgotten exactly how difficult the problem of figuring out how to react to 9/11 was in the months following the attack. Sure, the Afghanistan operation wasn't even a question (although our continued involvement there is looking more and more like the quagmire Iraq was declared to be - topic for another post). In late 2001-early 2002 there was a scramble to understand al-Qaeda, and what forces had caused it to emerge. Clearly, merely dealing with AQ as a minor criminal group which could be sufficiently dealt with using cruise missiles and police techniques had failed terribly, and a new approach had to be tried.
I think what Bush and his advisers settled on was that behind 9/11, at a fundamental level, was the nature of the oppressive governments in the Middle East, and the resulting resentment and tension that bred. And sitting in the center of the Middle East was Iraq, a great "black hole" of dictatorship under Saddam which was destabilizing the area and had also become a dedicated enemy to the United States after Gulf War I. Furthermore, 9/11 had brought home that the U.S. mainland could be hit, and therefore the issue of weapons of mass destruction had to be taken into account. Transforming Iraq from an enemy state which the intel suggested had at the least a keen interest in developing WMDs, into a democratic state which could serve as a beacon to the rest of the region and thereby remedy the forces which had helped create al-Qaeda, was a long-shot Hail Mary, but we didn't have a whole lot of options at that point. Sanctions were collapsing, and Saddam was becoming increasingly belligerent and more resistant to continuing WMD inspections. As it turned out, the invasion itself went off even better than the Pentagon and Administration had hoped, but the follow-up occupation and rebuilding was massively botched (oddly enough, as the pre-9/11 Bush himself probably would have predicted it would be - see above re: using the military for nation-building) - disbanding the Iraqi army and the de-Ba'athification project under Bremer were very idealistic, but without those two events, the insurgency never gets its sea legs - and Iraq was only redeemed much later by Petraeus and his understanding of how counter-insurgency needed to work.
In retrospect, Bush's downfall was that he trusted too much, and was loyal to the end to those he thought were worthy of it. His style was to look someone in the eye, and if he judged that he could trust that person, he'd rely on that person and stand up for them. We saw this in June 2006, when Bush left abruptly from a Camp David meeting which was supposed to be a review of war strategy to go meet al-Maliki in person. This was Bush's leadership style, very personal and one-on-one, and in many cases where he picked the right person for the job, like Petraeus, it worked very well. Unfortunately, this also meant that Bush had a blind spot and didn't perform due diligence on someone once he thought he had the right person for the job. Examples of this were continuing to see Putin as someone he could work with even after VP had indicated he saw the U.S. as a rival rather than an ally; putting Bremer in charge in Iraq and providing very little oversight; and the "you're doing a great job, Brownie" comment during Katrina, when in fact FEMA was caught by surprise by the Katrina levy collapses. In the end, what was one of his best personal attributes didn't serve him well as POTUS.
Despite what his haters want to believe, Bush did have a significant number of major accomplishments. First, of course, is that there were no terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland after 9-11. I think the next time we're hit - and there will be a next time, inevitably - the tone on Bush will start trending towards "well, at least he kept us safe." Bush also did much more for Africa than any previous President. Surprisingly for all the bad press he received from environmentalists, Bush protected more ocean territory than any previous POTUS. The expansion of faith-based organizations' charitable work under Bush's initiative was something that even McCain praised him for. Iraq was a failure for a long time, but the surge strategy has turned things around to the point that we can withdraw and leave behind a relatively successful state by Middle East standards. Even a non-supporter admitted there were some good things that came out of Bush's time as President.
In the end, Bush will likely end up like Truman: wildly unpopular at the end of his term, but recognized much later as a successful President who did what he had to under trying times, even though it made him hated by many at the time. Often, appreciation comes only in the context of seeing what came after, and to be sure, there's a lot that we probably don't know regarding what's happened in the past seven years regarding the secret side of the war on terror that won't come out for many years. Or, to put it another way, "You don't know what hasn't gotten to you."( Lucien Celine, The Serpent and the Rainbow.) Bush himself recognized this when he said about his legacy "I'll be dead when they finally figure it out."
Unfortunately for him, he's probably right. Such is the fortune of history.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-17 05:46 am (UTC)Regarding paragraph 5 ("I think what Bush and his advisers settled on"), I refer you to detailed analyses of the NeoCons, their derision of the Powell Doctrine, and their disappointment in GHWB's decision not to push all the way to Baghdad.
As for the repetitive assertion that Bush can take credit for the fact that there have been no new terrorist attacks on the US mainland after 9/11, it strikes me that this is the very LEAST we can expect from a sitting President who presided over our country when we were attacked; to call this an achievement suggests that we were prepared, in some way, for this to have NOT been the case. What is truly unclear is whether the lack of attacks is due mostly to thicker doors on airplanes and the ousting of the Taliban as the rulers of Afghanistan (a natural reaction that might have occurred under any President, GOP or no), or whether any of Bush's subsequent actions (Patriot Act; invading Iraq; TSA; Dept. of Homeland Security; National Intelligence Director; Gitmo; waterboarding; or unwarranted wiretapping) had any real effect.
Last, it's clear that one of the first acts of the Bush Administration heralds his final legacy: when he invited the heads of the oil companies to come to the White House to hold a confidential meeting to determine energy policy. The collusion with Big Business, the secrecy, and the arrogance were all there to see very early on, and they're the very things that he will be remembered for in years to come.
Also, Chris Hitchens' assertion that Mother Teresa was "a thieving, fanatical Albanian dwarf" robs him of much in the way of moral high ground when it comes to ad hominem attacks.