The decline of the American
presidency By Phar Kim Beng
HONG KONG - When the president of the United
States travels abroad, his official delegation,
including senior officers and security details, can
easily number in the thousands. With several hundred
journalists and camera crews in tow, his presence
seemingly radiates authority and influence.
At
the upcoming Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
meeting in Bangkok, it is easy to assume that the power
of US President George W Bush and the gravity of his
comments there will be immense.
After all,
having launched two wars - in Afghanistan and Iraq -
over the past two years, Bush is widely seen as a
powerful pole unto himself - albeit one whose
re-election prospects are now partly dependent upon how
quickly he can stabilize tensions in the two countries.
But how accurately does the world perceive the
power of a US president?
At the APEC meeting,
Bush may well represent the biggest and richest country.
But his power, because of the current mismanagement in
Iraq and Afghanistan, through policies which now require
total revamping, has already begun to slide. His
influence on economic issues has also waned
considerably.
True, much of the aura surrounding
presidential power is real. But it is also dated, and
the presidency has largely been emasculated due to
events emerging around the time of Watergate.
So
why do leaders in East Asia, especially those in China,
continue to believe that US presidents can make or break
a deal? The past has much to do with this belief.
East Asia has directly experienced the power of
the US presidency on at least three separate occasions
over the past 50 years as the result of events in Japan,
Korea and Taiwan respectively.
During World War
II, for example, when the war in the Pacific theater was
lumbering to an uncertain end, it was US president Harry
Truman who approved the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. The decisions proved decisive, as a defiant
Japan was soon brought to its knees. In one audacious
move, Truman was able to showcase the power and impact
of a no-nonsense US president.
On June 25, 1950,
when the North Korean army crossed the 38th parallel,
the response undertaken by Truman to protect Seoul was
equally rapid. Within weeks, the United Nations command
under US General Douglas MacArthur was already repelling
the North Korean forces and successfully pushing them
back. Yet, when MacArthur over-stepped his orders by
crossing the Yalu River to flush the Chinese soldiers
out of North Korea, the decorated hero was sacked by
Truman. Having brought MacArthur to heel, the US
presidency once again demonstrated that it was the crux
of political power.
After the Korean War
armistice on July 27, 1953, China began to test the
resolve of America's relationship with Taiwan by bombing
the offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu. Unfazed by
China's aggressive posture, however, president Dwight
Eisenhower signed the Mutual Defense Agreement with
Taiwan in December 1954. Although only the defense of
Taiwan and the Pescadores were specifically included,
the agreement nonetheless demonstrated the indomitable
will of the US president to resist China's frontal
assault.
These events in combination reinforced
the impression of an office that carried immense
political and military weight. Thus, the US presidency
became known as an institution with the ability to
affect the general flow of history.
In Southeast
Asia, US presidents such as John F Kennedy and Lyndon B
Johnson each left an indelible legacy. Like his
predecessors, Kennedy embodied their resolve in no
uncertain degree.
With his inaugural vow "to pay
any price and bear any burden" ringing audibly, Kennedy
began America's official involvement in Southeast Asia
by assigning "military advisers" to the South Vietnamese
government.
Kennedy's plan seemed to have
genuine momentum as well. For even after his
assassination, his policy was followed by Johnson, his
successor. Furthermore, between 1964 and 1967, Johnson
increased US troops in South Vietnam from a few thousand
to a force of 540,000 men. The massive troop dispatch
was approved by Congress under the Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution, a resolution that proved so sweeping in the
powers it granted to the president that Johnson later
likened it to his "grandmother's nightgown that covered
everything".
However, that was where the rise of
the American presidency came to an end. The Gulf of
Tonkin Resolution was approved as a result of deception,
and passed only because of misleading information
provided by Johnson himself. Contrary to Johnson's claim
that a US battleship in the Gulf of Tonkin had been
attacked by hostile elements, it was later discovered
that the battleship had in fact been maneuvering
provocatively in North Vietnamese waters.
Hence,
when the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was repealed in 1971,
the damage to the integrity of the US presidency had
been done. Not only were US forces losing the war in
South Vietnam, but presidential connivance in Indochina
had become commonplace.
The fall was only made
worse in 1969 and 1970 when president Richard Nixon
carried out a secret air war in Cambodia without
congressional knowledge. Nixon also condoned US military
operations in Laos without formally notifying Congress.
Although the aim was to bomb the Ho Chi Minh Trail to
prevent North Vietnamese forces from penetrating into
the South, the seedy manner in which the Indochina
operations were carried out caused Congress to be highly
suspicious of the Oval Office's foreign-policy
maneuvers. It was at this point that the US presidency
truly began to eclipse.
Therefore, it came as no
surprise when, after Nixon resigned in 1974 for his role
in the Watergate scandal, Congress quickly seized on the
prevailing cynicism against the White House by taking
the reins and disparaging the power of the president in
an attempt to curb the further subversion of the
political process.
The modern US presidency had
finally become less influential and free-wheeling - that
is, until September 11, 2001. Before September 11, which
boosted the ability of Bush to go to war in Afghanistan
and Iraq, none of his predecessors - from Nixon to
Clinton - proved able to go it alone.
Instead
they looked to Congress for approval, which is why in
1984 US troops were pulled out of Lebanon after much
congressional criticism. Then in 1990, US troops were
again withdrawn, this time from Somalia, when they
proved unable to check the chaos spread by Mohammad
Farah Aidid, the main warlord in Mogadishu. In 2000,
congressional opposition forced Clinton to abandon his
trip to North Korea.
The US public's perception
of the presidency has also changed, making it more
difficult for presidents to indulge in fully executive
fiats. The change in public attitudes over the past two
decades is well documented by polls taken before and
after Vietnam and Watergate.
In 1959, social
scientists of University of Michigan asked: "Some people
say the president is in the best position to see what
the country needs. Other people think the president may
have good ideas about what the country needs, but it is
up to the Congress to decide what ought to be done. How
do you feel about this?" Sixty-one percent chose the
president while only 17 percent chose Congress.
In 1977, the New York Times asked virtually the
same question. This time about 58 percent chose Congress
and only 26 percent sided with the president.
Recently, a similar poll was taken again. Now
about half of the US public wants both Congress to play
a more significant role and they want a problem-solving
presidency as well.
This trend suggests that the
US electorate has become more rigorous and demanding. It
also implies that no future occupant of the Oval Office
can have free rein. Any future president's influence and
authority will have to be "negotiated" with Congress,
even when the two chambers are dominated by the
president's own party, as is the present case.
Intricate bargains between Congress and the
president have become the norm, rather than the
exception. Thus in dealing with the White House, while
it is important to engage the assistance of the
president, it is equally crucial to enlist the help of
Congress. This is the arrangement that no East Asian
government can afford to ignore.
As the crises
in Iraq and Afghanistan deepen, Bush will be further
weakened. On October 5, David Kay, the leading US
weapons inspector, confided that no weapons of mass
destruction had been found in Iraq, Previously, Bush had
publicly spoken on six occasions of Iraq as an imminent
threat. Call it deception or poor judgment, he will
suffer heavily for misreading Iraq.
Indeed, the
"power" of US presidents, according to Richard Neustadt,
a political scientist at Harvard University, comes from
the "moral pulpit". This is derived from US presidents'
capacity to rally the public in their radio addresses,
public speeches, and the State of the Union address each
March.
These three occasions allow the president
to enlarge the terms of the debate in his favor. But if
the US public becomes distrustful of the words of the
president, his effectiveness - to negotiate with
Congress and to represent the people - will only
continue to decline.
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Oct 10, 2003
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