Bush and the Perils Of Ambition: "...nothing small or mean, ..."

Unlike the previous Administration, which had an indisputable genius for short term, small scale political tactics, Dubya and his government have a tendency to think big. If they didn't, they'd probably be called before the Un-Texan Activities Committee and forced to explain why they contented themselves with "iddy biddy stuff, like that fella from Arkansas."

Bush and his team came into office with ambitious ideas about how to reshape American education, reform Social Security and cut taxes more drastically than anyone had since Ronald Reagan. These goals served them fairly well. They got most of what they wanted in the tax bill and, while Conservatives may say that the Education Bill was written by Ted Kennedy, it still introduced a new level of accountability into the system. Social Security may not be reformed anytime soon, but Bush can claim to have touched the "third rail" of American politics, and lived.

During the 2000 campaign, Bush promised to try and "skip a generation" of weapons and proceed directly with the development and deployment a new generation of weapons which would be far more advanced and effective than anything previously seen. At the Pentagon, Don Rumsfeld has been doing his best to keep that promise, no matter how many toes he has to step on.

The changes that are being made to the way America prepares for and fights its war will be felt around the world by friends and foes for decades to come. Bush and Rumsfeld are changing the whole art of warfare in ways not seen since the 1920s and 1930s. At that time, few people understood the implications of the switchover from 19th century, industrial style warfare, to 20th century technological war. The current, so-called Revolution in Military Affairs, is being embraced by this Administration, and the transformation of America's warfighting is creating an entirely new kind of geopolitics.

After the attack of 9/11, the Administration declared "war on terrorism" which, at first, sounded like Woodrow Wilson's war to make the world "safe for democracy," but instead, has turned out to be a focused war against some of the sources of Islamist terror. At the same time, Bush is using that war to try and reshape the Middle East more drastically than anyone had done since 1948. Succeed or fail, the US is now engaged in an effort that will change forever the nature of Middle Eastern politics.

Unlike his predecessor, who tried to solve the Palestinian Arab / Israeli dispute in a vacuum, without taking into account the regional context. Bush and his people are building a new Middle East out of the ruins of the old one. The region that produced Bin Laden and the ideology that led to 9/11 is not going to be pacified by a treaty ratifying a "Two State Solution." The genocidal rage that is all too common in the Arab and Muslim world is not going to be satisfied with some modified version of the Deal that Yasser Arafat rejected at Camp David in 2000. The nature of Arab politics has got to change, and that is why Bush is hell bent on establishing a new democratic polity in Iraq.

Reshaping the Middle East may, in the end, be a fool's errand, but it is no small goal. Neither is the Administration's effort to reshape the US energy economy. While much of the focus is on whether or not to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the vastly more ambitious effort to emancipate the US and, over the long term, the whole of the world's economy from dependence on oil for ordinary transportation uses, is amazingly ambitious. It is also well within our current level of technology. Experimental prototypes of hydrogen powered fuel cell cars are being built, and new methods of producing hydrogen that do not depend on natural gas are already working, at least at the small scale model level.

In one aspect of space policy, the Bush administration has allowed NASA to go ahead with the radically new Nuclear Systems Program now renamed "Project Prometheus." They now propose JIMO (Jupiter Icy Moon Orbiter) project for a nuclear propelled spacecraft that will take only six years to reach the largest planet in our solar system. When it reaches its destination, it will have more than 10,000 watts of power available to power its onboard scientific instruments, as opposed to less than 50 for the Galileo mission that will end this month, or 200 watts for the Cassini probe that will go into orbit around Saturn in 2005.

If it is a success, JIMO will send more than 50,000 gigabytes of scientific data back to earth compared to tens of gigabytes for Galileo and Cassini. More important, it will provide America with a whole new way to get around the solar system. Cutting the time it takes to get to Mars to as little as three months will be a huge step towards a human mission to the red planet.

Whatever happens next year, Bush will have shown what ambition and moral courage can accomplish. His administration has laid out a set of very ambitious goals. He has shown that, in pursuit of those goals, he can be tactically flexible but strategically single minded, much the way Reagan was during the last years of the Cold War. Unlike Reagan, Bush is laying out ambitious goals across the board.

This President is not going to allow himself to get caught in the trap of cutting popular spending programs. The party out of power is always able to propose new spending and new programs without the need to fit them into a coherent budget and, of course, they are always ready to scream bloody murder if a single cent is cut from anything that any constituency supports. Bush is playing politics to win. He is playing for very big stakes. He may lose, he may win, but he can never be accused of playing petty politics.

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3 posted on 01/06/2004 9:56:13 PM PST by Support Free Republic (If Woody had gone straight to the police, this would never have happened!)

That is true. When Bush thinks big it is big. Bush will leave a very big impact on this nation when he leaves this office.

Space Ping! This is the space ping list! Let me know if you want on or off this list!

6 posted on 01/07/2004 5:52:53 PM PST by KevinDavis (Let the meek inherit the Earth, the rest of us will explore the stars!)

This analysis is very similar to my own. I unfortunately think in very Un-Politically Incorrect ways, and do not package my point of view so inoffensively!

The Bush program will result in a different sort of Islam, one not so eager to kill the Unbeliever and willing to see that there are other roads to God than their own. This is an overwhelming political and religious event. Imagine Islam turning into the United States Episcopal Church!! Dig it, lads an lassies!! Real space flight!! Real escape from the Oil Age!!!

You are privileged to see this happen in your lifetime!!

7 posted on 01/08/2004 12:46:34 AM PST by Iris7 ("Duty, Honor, Country". The first of these is Duty, and is known only through His Grace)

8 posted on 01/08/2004 12:47:53 AM PST by Iris7 ("Duty, Honor, Country". The first of these is Duty, and is known only through His Grace)

This President is not going to allow himself to get caught in the trap of cutting popular spending programs.

Just like Reagan.

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