Posted on 04/12/2003 4:47:32 PM PDT by MadIvan
Last week, The New York Times reported on the President's reaction to Don Rumsfeld's daily press conference. As the Times tells it, a Bush aide stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that "the unpredictable Defence Secretary" had just threatened Syria. The President looked up from his desk. "Good," he said. Then he went back to work.
If that story isn't true, it ought to be. First, because it confirms the Euro-Hollywood crowd's article of faith that Bush, Rummy and Co are anxious to invade anywhere at the drop of a hat. But, second, because it captures the President's management style: he doesn't worry about phoney media crises; he accords his lieutenants a generous degree of latitude; and he doesn't get distracted from his own priorities. As for Syria, there will be no need to invade. Damascus has since announced it has closed its porous border with Iraq, and any Syrian jihadi anxious to expel the infidel from Baghdad will have to take the long way round. The supply routes for its murkier import/export businesses have been greatly disrupted.
The Damascus branch of the Ba'ath Party is about to find itself in the unusual position, for an Arab dictatorship, of being a psycho island in a sea of comparative civilisation (Turkey, Free Iraq, Jordan and Israel). Syria is already feeling the effects of the Iraqi transformation. I wouldn't bet on Boy Assad having many more Ramadans in the presidential palace: the Third Infantry Division will not be required to remove him.
I realise that all the above - the idea of this President as a smart, savvy chief executive with a patient, methodical eye on the long-term - will strike his many British detractors as a lot of bosh. But then, as the placard of a gratefully liberated Kurd put it on Thursday, "THANK YOU BOSH".
No doubt, even now, the Bush moron jokes will be starting up again. When all your fondest hopes fail - the Iraqi people turn out to be less Ba'athist than the French, Baghdad isn't Stalingrad, the USAF didn't leave millions of dead kids - it's only natural to retreat to your one great surefire crowd-pleaser: "Shrub" (ha-ha) is an idiot, a "stupid white man", a Texan, a born-again Christian fundamentalist nutbar who would be speaking in tongues if he could string three syllables of gibberish together, and any day now he's sure to say something really dumb again and we can all stand around howling with laughter at the poor boob way out of his league, as a BBC correspondent recently revealed that the British press corps did, listening to the President in the overflow room at Camp David.
But if I may make a suggestion to my friends on the Left, do yourselves a favour and chuck the moron gags. It's insufficient to your needs. In case you still haven't noticed, Bush always winds up getting at least 90 per cent of everything he wants, and it can't all be dumb luck. A year ago the President told Trevor McDonald, "I made up my mind that Saddam needs to go". Well, Saddam has gone. In between came a lot of entertaining diplomatic dances in national costume, but, like the third act of The Nutcracker, they didn't impact on the plot: in the end, the nut got cracked.
Some of his allies - the Prime Minister of Britain - have overcome their squeamishness to regime change. Some of his opponents - the Prime Minister of Canada - were still objecting to regime change even after the regime had changed. But it was Bush's position that counted: one of his strengths is that he won't sacrifice the objective to the process. By contrast, it wasn't always apparent that his predecessor had objectives: what exactly was the desired end when Mr Clinton bombed that aspirin factory in the Sudan? In foreign policy, Clinton had tactics, not strategy: his inability to reach what the special prosecutor Ken Starr called "completion" extended far beyond Monica's gullet. On his tax cuts, on missile defence, on Saddam, Bush is completion-focused.
I mention Clinton for two reasons: first, because I miss being able to coast on oral sex gags for two-thirds of the column; and second, because Mr Bush, like his predecessor, has become one of those figures who unhinges his enemies. Clinton drove a lot of the Right loopy, Bush has done the same for the Left - as a casual glance at the "Bush Is Hitler" end of the peace march will confirm.
Most of the objections to him seem to be aesthetic - he's too hokey and Texan - and, from this stylistic revulsion, a whole host of stereotypes follow. As a line of attack this is ineffectual, because Bush doesn't care about aesthetics, or celebrity, or any of the other lenses through which the modern media view affairs of state. (The New York Times's Maureen Dowd complained during the 2000 campaign that he didn't know anything about pop culture.) Bill Clinton saw himself as the star of The Bill Clinton Show surrounded by various dull straight men (Bill Cohen, Sandy Berger); Bush sees himself as the unflashy CEO of a first-rate board (Cheney, Rummy, Condi, Colin).
Because he doesn't operate on Media Time, whereby 14 months is a precipitous "rush to war" but a 14-day war is a Vietnam-style quagmire, Bush doesn't get thrown off-course. He is a personally modest man with no particular desire to be on television all day long, which is why he's happy to let Tony Blair take as much of the limelight as he wants and why he was willing to fly to Belfast to emphasise the non-poodle nature of the Prime Minister's relationship: this business of who accords whom the honour of visiting whose village is an obsession of Arab mukhtars, not Texans.
In a sense, Mr Bush's view of Iraq is merely an extension of his view of Mr Blair: his buddy Tone may be somewhat weird and intense and unnaturally hung up on outmoded multilateral institutions, but in the end their common humanity overrides all that. Likewise, Bush doesn't see why children in Mosul are so different from those in Crawford: why shouldn't they have the same freedoms? You can mock this if you wish. It seems very odd that the Left, which routinely bemoans the injustice of Barbara Bush's son having greater opportunities than the son of a crack whore in the inner city merely because of an accident of birth, then turns around and tells 20 million Iraqis that they have to accept their lot and live in a prison state forever. Julian Barnes, Iowa's Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and a zillion others continue to feel this way - even after Saddam's fall.
Whether or not Mr Bush can succeed in his most ambitious objective - to democratise the Middle East - it is surely hard to deny that, next to the shriveled condescension of Barnes and co, his is the progressive position - adopted in the teeth of cynical opposition, not least from his own State Department.
I think Bush will pull off his grand project. In Paris, Mr Chirac is hoping for a pliant strongman he can do business with - this year's Laurent Kabila, the prematurely terminated heir to Mobutu's Congo. Even in less cynical chancelleries, the talk is of some star name among the Iraqi exiles - this year's Father Aristide, the supposed Ghandi of Haiti. But, when you speak to fellows in the Administration, the plans are at once grander and lowlier - they are thinking about the small civic institutions necessary to breathe life into the old Ottoman vilayets of Mosul, Baghdad and Basra. They're looking to build a functioning state, not to install a client.
Bush has a strong team and he likes to delegate, and the people to whom he delegates have strong teams to whom they delegate. It was the commanders on the ground who set the pace to Baghdad. If President Bush is looking for a system of effective decentralisation to bequeath to Iraq, his own Administration these past four weeks is a good working model.
I agree with you.
Syria and Lebanon are next...which will take us nicely up to the 2004 election, thank you very much.
It is easy to prove terrorism in these countries, and we need to make sure there is no-one threatening our back if we ever need to do Iran (Bush's second term.)
I predict Syria goes down this Fall and Lebanon next Summer.
...Media Time, whereby 14 months is a precipitous "rush to war" but a 14-day war is a Vietnam-style quagmire....
Dan
I hope so, but I'm not so sure our government is going to go that far--yet. I fear they may believe that we can cow Syria into compliance. I don't think we can.
Syrians may not be as eager to change regimes as Iraqis are, so we need to approach the challenge a little differently. We can destroy their armies, but occupation we may not be greeted as liberators, and that will make the task more difficult and harder to sell at home.
Freeing Lebanon from Syria's yoke is another matter. Once Syria is freed, we can march right into Lebanon, and will face resistance only from out and out terrorists, who do not fight so well against a real army. They will be removed quite quickly, and I think we will see the people's strong desire to return to a society like they had before 1985. Lebanon was a very well-developed and modern society before Syria moved in and destroyed it. It will be a while before the Christians and Muslims can get along again, but at least we have a past history of civility, and with our presence, it can be restored.
Me too, please.
BTW, if I'm going to be a head over heels Steyn adorer, I really should learn how to pronounce the name.
Is it Stain, Steen, or Stein?
Homer
Me too, please.
BTW, if I'm going to be a head over heels Steyn adorer, I really should learn how to pronounce the name.
Is it Stain, Steen, or Stein?
Homer
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