"Marvin Long, Jr." wrote: > And yet. I feel that this particular course of action, and this > particular timing, has pretty much been force-fed to the American people > by a propaganda campaign based on scanty facts and half-truths to convince > us all that Hussein presents to America the same degree of threat today > that al Qaeda presented on Sept. 10, 2001. I feel the object of an, "If > you can't blind 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit" campaign. > Which in turn makes me feel that the options for creating a broader world > consensus for action existed and were deliberately discarded before they > were ever explored. Why?
I just came across this article that explores Bush's ineffective diplomacy and the reasons behind it, and had been debating whether to post it. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-17-anti-diplomacy-usat_x.htm Right or wrong, Bush stuck to his instincts By Judy Keen, USA TODAY, 3-17-03 WASHINGTON - More than any other episode in his presidency, the diplomatic battle at the United Nations over war with Iraq put President Bush's strengths and flaws on stark display. To the president, most issues are matters of right or wrong, good or evil. He has great faith in his own impulses: "I'm an instinct player," he once said in an interview. After he decides on a course of action, Bush moves forward with little vacillation or retrospection. Those who disagree are simply mistaken. Bush's friends consider those traits a sign of confident leadership. Vice President Cheney said Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press that he likes the idea of having a president who practices "cowboy" diplomacy. "He cuts to the chase, he is very direct, and I find that very refreshing," Cheney said. But Bush's critics say the president practices bulldozer diplomacy - arrogant, disrespectful and sometimes naive. "This administration has all the diplomatic subtlety of an Abrams tank," says Ted Galen Carpenter, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, a Washington think tank. "It tends to demand accommodation by other countries and it throws the foreign-policy equivalent of a temper tantrum when it does not get its way." In his unsuccessful effort to win U.N. Security Council approval of a new resolution paving the way for war with Iraq, Bush often ignored diplomatic protocol: Instead of hashing out disputes with longtime allies France, Germany and Russia behind closed doors, he publicly challenged them to a showdown that he seemed almost to relish. He tried to bully reluctant leaders, such as Mexican President Vicente Fox, an old pal from Bush's days as Texas governor, into joining him. Bush's aides were scornful of those who declined. Last week they openly mocked France, noting with sarcasm that it rejected a British compromise even before Saddam Hussein did. Bush embarrassed some countries, including Turkey, by failing to keep confidential his offerings of aid and other considerations in exchange for support. His undeterred march to war has already claimed diplomatic casualties. Bush's most steadfast ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who led the battle for a U.N. resolution opening the door to war, faces strong objections and sinking approval ratings at home. Former British foreign secretary Robin Cook, the appointed Leader of the House of Commons, resigned from the British government Monday in opposition to Blair's push for war. Instead of establishing and sticking to a rationale for an unprovoked war with Iraq, Bush offered a shifting series of reasons and left the impression that he was searching for one that would close the sale. He started with the idea that the Saddam regime must be removed because of the threat of chemical and biological weapons, then moved on to Iraq's violations of its citizens' human rights, Saddam's supposed links to the al-Qaeda terrorist network, then argued that ousting Saddam would aid peace in the Middle East, and finally the imperative that the United States defend itself from the threat of Iraq-sponsored terrorism. He challenged the United Nations to prove its relevance by endorsing war with Iraq, then said he would go to war whether he got the endorsement or not. Only in the final week before the Security Council vote did Bush embark intently on diplomacy. By that point, most of his advisers had given up on an outright victory. They were hoping for the nine votes needed to pass a resolution, so that despite France's veto Bush could say a majority of the Security Council backed war. He choreographed a series of phone calls - his own and dozens by Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice - to the leaders of nations represented on the Security Council and other heads of state who might have influence over them. It was too late. By the end of last week, the deadline Bush had set for a U.N. vote, the United States had not been persuasive enough. Lack of support forced him to postpone a call for a vote and raise the prospect that the resolution might be withdrawn. Eight days earlier, he had demanded that the Security Council nations "show their cards" regardless of whether there were enough votes for passage. Last Friday, the last-ditch scramble for support became transparent: Bush announced plans for Sunday's summit with Blair and Spanish President Jose Maria Aznar in the Azores. He also popped into the White House's Rose Garden to repeat his call for a Palestinian state. That was a blatant entreaty to allies who complain that Bush is neglecting the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Relationships strained Through it all, Bush showed a lack of diplomatic finesse and a "tough-guy moral certainty," says Donald McHenry, a U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the Carter administration. As a result, the United States' role at the United Nations and relationships with some longtime allies have been severely wounded, he says. Most ominously, it might have increased the likelihood that countries such as North Korea and China will claim the same right to pre-emptive military action against perceived threats. "We'll have to build (relationships) up again. We will discover that we've done some damage to international law and that others will seek to use the precedents and rationalizations that we've used," McHenry says. "We're going to have some damage to the United States and its image worldwide." Martin Indyk, a U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, says Bush's diplomacy has been marked by "an overweening arrogance that is a product of a combination of righteousness, pride and passion." Bush believes he's leading a vital mission that is too urgent for the time-consuming etiquette of traditional diplomacy. If Iraq is not confronted now, he said on March 6, "free nations would assume immense and unacceptable risks. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction." Bush's pedigree and experience seem like the biography of a natural diplomat. His father, George H.W. Bush, was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and liaison to China before he became vice president and president. After Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990, the elder Bush patiently assembled a coalition to kick him out and won the United Nations' backing. The elder Bush phoned so many world leaders to appeal for their help that he was nicknamed "the mad dialer." The current president's background would seem to have supplied the start for developing similar skills. In prep school, he was head cheerleader and commissioner of stickball. At Yale, he was president of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. During his tenure as Texas governor and during the 2000 presidential campaign, he was praised for his amiability, relaxed attitude and ability to build relationships with lawmakers of both political parties. He campaigned as someone who would be "a uniter, not a divider." Since moving into the White House, though, he has been impatient with formalities and showmanship that traditionally mark presidents' relationships with their peers. Stiff photo opportunities bore him. On overseas trips, he asks his aides to spare him the superficial chitchat with heads of state that he disparages as "small talk in big rooms." Critics abroad complain that he believes he can order around other heads of state. Bush demonstrated his conviction in his own clout soon after taking office. He halted the Clinton administration's cautious outreach to North Korean leaders and refused to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. He withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement to slow global warning, and announced his intention to scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty so he could develop and deploy a missile-defense system. Those moves irritated the leaders of two nations now standing against him on Iraq: German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, a strong supporter of the Kyoto treaty, and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who gave up the ABM Treaty only reluctantly. Bush raised eyebrows again when he said of Kim Jong Il "I loathe him" and called the North Korean leader a "pygmy." After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush's peers put their qualms aside to join him in the fight against terrorism. But some of them cringed when he said he wanted al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden captured "dead or alive" and lamented his lack of subtlety when he notified the world that in the war on terror, "Either you're with us or you're against us." There were more misgivings after Bush called Iraq, Iran and North Korea the "axis of evil" in his 2002 State of the Union speech. Christopher Patten, foreign affairs commissioner for the European Union, warned then that U.S. victories in Afghanistan "reinforced some dangerous instincts ... that the U.S. can rely only on itself and that allies may be useful as an optional extra." German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer complained, "Alliance partners are not satellites." Bush is not the first president to sprinkle rhetorical spice into public pronouncements. Ronald Reagan once used a catchphrase from a Clint Eastwood movie to warn Congress not to consider raising taxes: "Go ahead. Make my day." Reagan also startled allies when he labeled the Soviet Union "the evil empire" in 1983. He was criticized for his blunt language, too. Unwavering confidence Bush believes his job requires him, above all, to make decisions and enforce them. He doesn't spend much time tiptoeing around egos or fretting about hurt feelings. Author Bob Woodward asked him to assess his diplomatic skills for the 2002 book Bush at War. "I kind of picture myself as a pretty good diplomat, but nobody else does," Bush said. "You know, particularly, I wouldn't call me a diplomat." But Bush possesses unwavering confidence in his moral compass. He believes that Saddam will always be evil and must be removed. He also believes he has been called to lead the nation and the world in this task. That conviction stems in part from his religious beliefs. "My faith sustains me because I pray daily. I pray for guidance and wisdom and strength," he said. His advisers say his determination was forged in the rubble of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: He decided then that he would do anything and everything necessary to prevent another assault on America - even if it cost him his personal popularity and his shot at a second term, a close adviser says. Bush's admirers say that self-assurance is the hallmark of a leader. "He's being firm and reasonable, direct without engaging in personal attack," says Larry Wortzel, an international policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. Critics say the moral certitude is arrogant. Steven Lamy, director of the School of International Relations at the University of Southern California, says Europeans are put off by "Bush's absolutism - his for-us-or-against-us attitude." Unlike his father, Lamy says, Bush "doesn't see the very complex strategy of using a combination of carrots, sticks and sermons. ... He doesn't practice assertive multilateralism, which is taking the lead and pulling people along no matter how reluctant they are." Says John Podesta, a chief of staff in the Clinton White House: "The blunt talk that the American people like and now expect from the president ends up being a real obstacle to pulling together the international community." Others wonder whether Bush's public bravado conceals deeper doubts. McHenry sees a nagging sense of inadequacy beneath the surface of Bush's stubbornness. "He's trying to prove to himself that he's not a fluke" who rode his father's coattails into the Oval Office after a disputed election, the veteran diplomat says. 'Do what you think is right' A quick and decisive victory over Iraq would curtail, at least for a time, criticism of Bush's diplomatic style. But foreign policy experts say the opinions and divisions formed during the Iraq debate will shadow Bush for the rest of his time in office and make some challenges more difficult: He will need the help of the United Nations to rebuild Iraq and to rein in North Korea's nuclear ambitions. He will have to enlist the support of allies to define a path to peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. He needs to be on speaking terms with estranged allies, including Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac, when he meets with them at a economic summit in Evian, France, in June. Carpenter anticipates "subtle coalitions developing against the United States that will seek to erode our power." For example, he says, Russia may resist U.S. efforts to stop selling nuclear technology to Iran or feel emboldened to crack down on separatists in Chechnya. France and Germany may seek more ties to Iran and trade agreements may be harder to negotiate, he says. "At a time of our maximum power, we're seeing a waning of our influence," says Lee Feinstein of the Council on Foreign Relations, who served in Clinton's State Department. "That affects our ability to lead and to get what we want and need from others." Bush's friends and close aides say he is mindful of all those concerns. But his gut is driving his march to war. "You've just got to do what you think is right, and just make the decisions based upon noble causes," Bush told USA TODAY last month. "And a noble cause is peace and security and freedom." _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
