| |
Bush
still dodging bullets
By Ehsan Ahrari
The wrong-headed nature of the United States
decision to invade Iraq is regularly exposed; however,
nothing seems to affect George W Bush's popularity. The
"Teflon presidency" of Ronald Reagan - whereby all
potentially harmful political events had no deleterious
effect on his popularity - seems to have come alive for
Bush, to date at least.
On January 25, David
Kay, retiring from his position as chief weapons
inspector in Iraq, said that the US Central Intelligence
Agency failed to recognize that Iraq had all but
abandoned its efforts to produce large quantities of
chemical or biological weapons after the first Gulf War
of 1991. As if the US decision to invade Iraq was
contingent on the accuracy of that information. On
January 26, Human Rights Watch issued a report on Iraq.
Their verdict: the US and the United Kingdom were wrong
to use the toppling of a brutal regime as a reason to
justify going to war against Iraq.
Considering
all the available evidence, the US decision to invade
Iraq can no longer be based on Saddam Hussein's alleged
possession of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
Similarly, there is no evidence of any collusion between
Iraq under Saddam and al-Qaeda. In fact, one of the
documents recovered from Saddam's brief case when he was
captured contains the former ruler's warning to his
cohorts about not getting too close to foreign jihadis
in their struggle against the occupation forces. And now
even Secretary of State Colin Powell has came around to
admitting the absence of a smoking gun on the al-Qaeda
connection and on WMD in Iraq. Speaking to reporters
aboard a flight to Tbilisi during the weekend, Powell
said: "The open question is how many stocks they
[Iraqis] had, if any. And if they had any, where did
they go? And if they didn't have any, then why wasn't
that known beforehand?"
But there are three
remaining true believers - Bush, British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, and US Vice President Dick Cheney - who
still insist that the decision to invade Iraq was a
correct one. Of the three, Bush has switched his
rhetorical emphasis from Saddam's purported possession
of WMD to Iraq's WMD programs. Blair is still insisting
that he "has absolutely no doubt" about the intelligence
concerning WMDs he received immediately prior to the
invasion of Iraq. As for Cheney, his frame of reference
remains impervious to anything that is contradictory, no
matter how factual. However, the public criticism of
Bush is virtually non-existent, save from the Democratic
presidential candidates.
Why has Bush's
popularity remained unaffected, despite the abundance of
criticism of his invasion of Iraq? The most significant
reason is that he has been a good salesman regarding
Iraq, just like Reagan, for whose presidency the phrase
"Teflon" was coined. In a Pew Research Center poll taken
recently, 65 percent of the American people still think
that invading Iraq was the "right" decision. This is a
significant number, especially when one considers the
fact that only 22 percent of the respondents in the same
survey think that things are going very well in Iraq.
What is also working for Bush is the fact that there
aren't reports of large daily or weekly American
casualties to evaporate the popular support of continued
American presence in Iraq. Moreover, the capture of
Saddam has taken much steam out of the arguments of
Bush's critics.
Positive effects of the
preceding factors not withstanding, Bush must be wary of
a number of potentially troublesome variables in Iraq.
First, Democratic presidential candidates' unrelenting
condemnation of his policies regarding Iraq is still
likely to take its toll on Bush's popularity. Second, if
there is major turbulence in Iraq stemming from a
potential outburst of Shi'ite anger, then things might
start to go south for Bush. In the meantime, his
advisers are spending considerable energy in taking
"right steps" and sending "right messages" to the
Iraqis, the global community, and the American people.
The recent American decision to give high visibility to
the UN in Iraq is one such measure. Washington's
willingness to accommodate Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's
demands for direct elections - or at least some
semblance of it - is another.
Even though Bush
has been highly criticized for his unilateral approach
to foreign policy, the American public has a different
perception of that. His pursuit of America's overseas
interests continues to receive high marks from the
American public. The Pew Survey reports that nearly half
of Americans - 47 percent - say that Bush pushes US
interests "about right". His predecessor, Bill Clinton,
scored considerably lower than Bush on that issue in
1996, one year prior to his reelection. Clinton's score
was 39 percent.
These impressive numbers
notwithstanding, no durable conclusions can be drawn
about Bush's reelectability. His decision to invade Iraq
may still turn out to be a strong reason for his
reelection, or the chief reason for his defeat. There
are nine more months to the presidential elections. That
is almost akin to having a lifetime in the unmaking of
old myths - the Teflon presidency - or the making of new
ones. Only two weeks ago, Democratic presidential
candidate John Kerry's candidacy was viewed as a thing
of the past. He is the leading contender now, while
Howard Dean - the erstwhile Democratic frontrunner - is
frequently mentioned as a passing phenomenon after he
delivered what's derisively referred to as an "I have a
scream speech" after his third position in the Iowa
caucus last week.
Ehsan Ahrari, PhD,
is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent
strategic analyst.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
