America in Transition

President Bush’s farewell visit to Europe was one of his longest visits to the “Old Continent,” but it may also have been the least noticed. From Slovenia, Northern Ireland, and Germany, to London, Rome, and Paris, Bush took nearly a week to meet with heads of government, the European Union, the Pope and the Queen of England — all without making much news. Even within the countries visited, such as tiny Slovenia, with a total population of less than two million, the President came and went without much impact. This is quite unusual, if for no reason other than the size of a U.S. President’s traveling party and the logistical requirements imposed on the governments of the countries visited. This scant attention is a sign of Bush’s reduced influence, due to his short remaining tenure in office, but also, more fundamentally, the slight regard in which his policies are held.

The ticking away of the George W. Bush presidency is in some ways a sad thing to observe from abroad. For someone who displayed little interest in foreign affairs prior to running for President, Bush will be remembered almost exclusively for his response to a terrible attack on the U.S. homeland that had profound international implications. The “Education President” became the “War on Terror President,” and the American public grew so unhappy with the results that the first thing all major candidates have said this year is that they will not be anything like George W. Bush.  Low esteem for Bush seems to be one of the things that unite most Americans and most Europeans in this U.S. election year.

Nevertheless, some conservatives, such as Ann Coulter, argue that Bush will be eventually be regarded as a “great president” on the grounds that “he kept us safe.” Coulter puts it this way:

It is unquestionable that Bush has made this country safe by keeping Islamic lunatics pinned down fighting our troops in Iraq. In the past few years, our brave troops have killed more than 20,000 al-Qaida and other Islamic militants in Iraq alone. That’s 20,000 terrorists who will never board a plane headed for JFK — or a landmark building, for that matter.

The factual accuracy of the above assertion can be disputed, but even were it entirely true, there have been so many unintended and yet foreseeable consequences of Bush’s approach to fighting the “War on Terror” that the value of “pinning down” terrorists on the Iraqi battlefield is highly dubious. From the legal and ethical mess at Guantanamo, to the growth of Iranian influence in Iraq, the weakening of U.S. leadership in the West, the loss of American lives and treasure, the dilution of the focus on attacking al-Qaida sanctuaries in Afghanistan, and ultimately the failure to eliminate the man whom Bush said he “Wanted — Dead or Alive,” Osama Bin Ladin — all have lead to a dismal conclusion that no one running for office wants to be associated with.
While eventually some historians will give Bush credit for preventing any further attack on the United States during his years at the White House, an enduring legacy is usually built on something positive you accomplish rather than something negative you prevent from happening.

There is another way of looking at this: Presidents should be allowed some credit for the things that go right on their watch, because they will surely get blamed for the things that go wrong. So Bush deserves credit — although few members of his own Party, and none of the Republican presidential candidates actually said this out loud — for preventing another 9/11. This is because the negative “legacy” is so obvious.

The most prominent sound bite that came out of Bush’s European trip was, again, on his view of his decision to invade Iraq:

I don’t regret [having gone to war with Iraq] at all. Removing Saddam Hussein made the world a safer place. And yes, [when I was asked], now what could you do over? First of all, you don’t get to do things over in my line of work. But I could have used better rhetoric to indicate that one, we tried to exhaust the diplomacy in Iraq; two, that I don’t like war. But, no, the decision to remove Saddam Hussein was the right decision.

The Bush years are ending in a strange way, as Britain’s The Independent puts it. Bush now seems interested in listening to Europeans in the waning days of his presidency, when it matters less to them, than in the early days, when it mattered greatly to all concerned.

And, ah yes, he could have used better rhetoric.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 14th, 2008 at 5:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized, Iraq, Foreign Policy Blogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.