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DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Bush's faith run over by history
By Mark Danner
toward us." In case Aznar doesn't get the point, he describes to the Spaniard
what each nation will suffer if it doesn't recognize "what's at stake":
[Chilean President Ricardo] Lagos has to know that the Free Trade Agreement
with Chile is pending Senate confirmation, and that a negative attitude on this
issue could jeopardize that ratification. Angola is receiving funds from the
Millennium Account that could also be compromised if they don't show a positive
attitude. And Putin must know that his attitude is jeopardizing the relations
of Russia and the United States. What is striking about this
passage is not only how crude and clumsy it is, with the President of the
United States spouting threats like a movie gangster - he presumably wants the
Spaniard to convey them directly to the various leaders - but how ineffective
the bluster turned out to be. None of these countries changed their position on
a second resolution, which, in the event, was never brought before the Security
Council to what would have been certain defeat. Bush, in making the threats,
did the one thing an effective leader is supposed always to avoid: he issued an
order that was not obeyed, thus demonstrating the limits of his power. (The
Iraq war itself, meant as it was to "shock and awe" the world and particularly
US adversaries, did much the same thing.)
Along with bluster comes stern self-righteousness. Aznar asks whether "there's
a possibility of Saddam Hussein going into exile" - "the biggest success," he
tells Bush, "would be to win the game without firing a single shot" - and Bush
answers that there is:[The Egyptians] say he's indicated that he's
willing to go into exile if they let him take $1 billion and all the
information that he wants about the weapons of mass destruction.
And would such exile, asks Aznar, come with a "guarantee" (presumably against
prosecution or extradition)? "No guarantee," declares Bush. "He's a thief, a
terrorist, a war criminal. Compared to Saddam, Milosevic would be a Mother
Teresa." Though it's hard to evaluate whether Saddam was really willing to
leave Iraq - the Egyptians, Saudis, and others who were then touting the
possibility all had an interest in seeing Saddam leave and the Sunni power
structure remain in place - it is inconceivable that he would do so without
some sort of guarantee, a possibility Bush forecloses.
What is most interesting in this passage, and indeed in the entire transcript,
is what it reveals about Bush's attitudes and character. One moment he blusters
and threatens, the next he speaks reverently and self-righteously about how he
is guided by "a historic sense of responsibility": When some years from
now History judges us, I don't want people to ask themselves why Bush, or
Aznar, or Blair didn't face their responsibilities. In the end, what people
want is to enjoy freedom. Not long ago, in Romania, I was reminded of the
example of Ceausescu: it took just one woman to call him a liar for the whole
repressive system to come down. That's the unstoppable power of freedom. I am
convinced that I'll get that resolution. He did not get it, of
course. Despite his strong conviction, neither Chile nor Angola nor Russia
proved ready to change their votes, threat or no threat. There is a difference
between being sure and being right. Bush's conviction, here as elsewhere, came
not from an independent analysis of the facts - of the interests and intentions
of the nations involved - but from the wellspring of faith. He has confused
rhetoric, however uplifting, and reality. Aznar, the sophisticated European,
comments wryly on this. It is the most Jamesian moment in the playlet of
Crawford; one can almost see the subtly arched eyebrow: Aznar: The only
thing that worries me about you is your optimism.
Bush: I am an optimist, because I believe that I'm right. I'm at peace with
myself. It's up to us to face a serious threat to peace. It is
worrying, as Aznar remarks, to rely on optimism grounded only in belief. The
Spaniard knows that gaining that second Security Council resolution, and thus
the critical international legitimacy for the war, will be very hard; in many
nations, launching a war against Iraq, particularly before the UN inspectors
have finished their work, is deeply unpopular. Faith cannot replace facts, nor
can a historic sense of mission. Both may be personally comforting - they
plainly are to George W Bush - but they don't obviate the need to know things.
Bush came to office a man who knew little of the world, who had hardly traveled
outside the country, who knew nothing of the practice of foreign policy and
diplomacy. Two years later, after the attacks of September 11 and his emergence
as a self-described "war president", he has come to know only that this lack of
knowledge is not a handicap but perhaps even a strength: that he doesn't need
to know things in order to believe that he's right and to be at peace with
himself. He has redefined his weakness - his lack of knowledge and experience -
as his singular strength. He believes he's right. It is a matter of generations
and destiny and freedom: it is "up to us to face a serious threat to peace".
For Bush, faith, conviction, and a felt sense of destiny - not facts or
knowledge - are the real necessities of leadership.2
So Bush is confident - confident about winning the second resolution and thus
international legitimacy; confident, because "we're developing a very strong
humanitarian aid package", that "there's a good basis for a better future" in a
"post-Saddam Iraq". In fact, of course, at the very moment he is telling these
things to the Spanish prime minister in Crawford, Texas, the postwar planning
in Washington is a shambles, consisting of little more than confusion and
savage internecine warfare between the Defense and State Departments.
The plan for governance in "post-Saddam Iraq" does not exist, all discussion of
it having been paralyzed by a bitter dispute between officials in the Pentagon,
State Department, and CIA that Bush will never resolve. The Iraqi "civil
society" that he tells Aznar is "relatively strong" will soon be decimated by
the prolonged looting and chaos that follows on the entry of American troops
into Baghdad. The "good bureaucracy" he boasts about in Iraq will
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