The last time I wrote in defence of George W. Bush I got three broad categories of feedback. The leftist dimwits were angry, apoplectic, incoherent and best ignored. My supporters, the right-thinking conservatives were complimentary in that delightful understated way which is God’s gift to us conservatives. What surprised me were the mid-fielders who wrote in telling me that while they were not in complete agreement with me (doubtless they will be if they keep buying the Indian Express and reading my columns in the right spirit!) they wanted to thank me for providing a distinct and sobering perspective. Shrill anti-Bush fire-breathing dragons occupy so much of the op-ed space that both balance and perspective seem to often disappear.
Napoleon is known to most of us for his military and political achievements in the European arena. Jena and Austerlitz, the Code Napoleon and the Arc d’Triomphe and so on are the stuff of general knowledge. Very few people know that Napoleon invaded Egypt and Palestine. He defeated the Egyptians at the Battle of the Pyramids and his campaign at Acre was riddled with controversy. Napoleon’s intrusion into the Middle East had little lasting impact on his overall career. One could argue that it was a sideshow.
While the biographer of Napoleon may make the Egyptian campaign a footnote, the historian of the Middle East will not. Every one of them will tell you that Napoleon’s brief interlude in Egypt marked a major inflexion point in the history of that entire region. It was a military, political and cultural watershed with incalculable consequences to the collective psyche of all inhabitants. One can think of the Middle East before and after the Napoleonic shock treatment. And by the way, this goes for historians in all ideological camps — those who think of Napoleon and his army as benign as well as those who ascribe every kind of malefic design and effect to them.
I would make the argument simply as a matter of historical prophecy that Bush will go down in the same category as Napoleon in terms of his impact not only on the history of the Middle East but also in terms of the analogy that Bush’s intervention will be seen by future historians as having similar consequences — creating a discontinuity, establishing an inflexion point. And again I would appeal to persons from all ideological schools to examine this simply in terms of impact, not based on whether they think the intervention is desirable or not. And remember, contemporary students as well as future historians, you read about this first in my column!
Revolutions happen for different reasons. The fiscal bankruptcy of the “ancien regime” and the obtuse and stubborn unwillingness of the aristocracy to share power with the bourgeoisie caused the French Revolution. Comprehensive defeat in war combined with the “agony of the thousand-mile long front that even Comrade Lenin underestimated”, as Yevgraf Zhivago put it, led to the Russian Revolution. Commodore Perry’s insistent stance with the Shogun led to the end of the Shogunate and the Meiji Revolution in Japan. The aspirations of the Chinese diaspora and the discredited state of the Manchu nobility led to the Chinese Revolution of 1911. Comprehensive defeat followed by a conscious rejection of the banner of the Islamic Caliphate and the embrace of Anatolian Turkish identity made possible the Kemalist Revolution in Turkey. The direct military intervention by President George W. Bush in the Mesopotamian sands in the early years of the 21st century already seems to be gaining the contours of the event which will precipitate the yet-to-be-named revolution in the Middle East.
The physical presence of the Anglo-American coalition, the worldwide disgust with the horror of totalitarian regimes (the Baathist tyranny being merely the most egregiously sickening one), the exemplary impact of elections where actually the results turned out quite different from what the conquerors might have wanted, the ability and the willingness of the winning armies to punish the sadists among them after open trials while the regimes of the Middle East treat the existence of their own torture-chambers as matters of casual routine, the simple fact that there are a hundred newspapers and a hundred cable channels in the previously monochromatic Iraq — all of these are impacting the psyche of the much-maligned Arab street in ways that we may not be able to discern for a long time. After all, we are too close to the events and do not have the benefit of the telescope of history.
For the leader of a political party known for its inward-looking isolationist platform, for the leader of a country which has constantly debated as to whether it even wants to bother with the blood-lettings of the old world, it is quite ironic that Bush is the person making what seems to be disproportionate impact in one of the world’s oldest, most-intractable regions. Unlike Napoleon who never understood how important a role he played in Middle Eastern annals, Bush seems to be conscious of it. His speech-writers are having a field day trying to portray him as being in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson. I would only humbly say: “Ay there’s the rub”.
The moment the spin-doctors take over there is every likelihood that Bush will start moving towards a wimpish “let me please the liberal media” line. This, in my opinion, would seriously undermine the quality and the impact of his Middle Eastern intervention where, by being steadfast in his resolution, he has achieved so much both directly and indirectly. For, signs of weakness, signals of willingness to abandon compatriots, attempts to appease the extremists — these are what the Arab street is looking for. And if any of these signs are perceived, the reaction will be swift, negative and baneful from the perspective of all the well-wishers of the region. My unsolicited advice to George W. and his advisors is simply this: “Please, please do not craft a strategy, a doctrine or even a slogan, let alone an operating plan to curry favour with the liberal media. That would not only be distinctly un-Napoleonic, but I predict would go down dimly with history. As a simple rule of thumb, it might be wise to do everything that is diametrically the opposite of what the liberal media suggest!”
The writer is chairman and CEO, Mphasis. Write to him at jerryrao@expressindia.com