MARCH 10, 2003
WASHINGTON WATCH
By Douglas Harbrecht
Where This Bush Parts Ways with Dad | When it comes to planning for war, just about everywhere. Not following his father's successful strategies could be George W.'s biggest mistake
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Maniacal is the way President George W. Bush's growing legion of critics describe him as he serenely commits the U.S. to the first unprovoked attack on another country in the nation's history. The President gave no quarter at his Mar. 7 press conference, declaring that ousting Saddam Hussein is a matter of upholding his oath to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution and nothing less than removing a "cancer" on the region.
Having covered the first Bush Presidency for BusinessWeek, I see this Bush's calm resolve a bit differently than most of the critics do. His demeanor has traces of family DNA all over it. His steely, eye-of-the-storm serenity has strong echoes of his father's emphatic declaration that Saddam's invasion of Kuwait "will not stand" 12 years ago. Americans forget today, but Bush Senior's decision to commit massive U.S. forces to action with virtually no consultation with Congress was seen then as incredible, even outrageous, by many. "No compromises, no concessions," Bush declared in the buildup to the Persian Gulf war. He upset a lot of people at the time.
"THINK BIG, FIGHT HARD." Certainly, when it comes to process, Bush Younger is still following the framed "Marching Orders" that were omnipresent in White House offices back then, a patrician code of honor that Daddy Bush insisted be followed by all his lieges. Among the rules: "Think big. Be frank. Fight hard for your position." And, "when I make the call, we move the team."
Like his father, Bush has kept decision-making within a tight group that includes Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. And never underestimate loyalty when it comes to the Bushes: Only Rumsfeld wasn't with Team Bush in 1991.
Like father, like son? Not quite. What's stunning in private -- and perplexing, even saddening, to senior aides from the first Bush Presidency who aren't part of this Administration -- is the current President's decision to shun the substantive gameplan that his father used to achieve his greatest triumph. After all, Bush's father wrote the modern book on how to marshal an international coalition against a rogue regime bent on mayhem. Yet, with war perhaps days away, this President has at every point turned away from much of his father's foreign policy wisdom, and he has elevated the second showdown with Saddam to the largest of gambles.
How has Bush gone against his father on the foreign policy stage? Let's count the ways:
Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy: Bush Senior has kept a pretty tight lip, but chances are he's aghast at his son's insistence on going it alone. While stiff and maladroit on the domestic stage (remember Bush-speak?), in the international arena, dad was a master of global charm, bonding with fellow world leaders and then using his carefully cultivated relationships to build unprecedented allied resolve against Saddam.
At first, it looked like young Bush learned well at his father's knee. Recall how he looked deeply into Russian President Vladamir Putin's eyes and found the soul of a good man? Pundits had a field day, but such warm-and-fuzzy diplomatic feints produce a glue that can hold nations together when times get rough.
Yet what has happened since September 11 has been a disaster for American diplomacy that even Secretary of State Powell -- a pretty good diplomat in his own right -- can't fix. It's not just Bush's decision to ignore and deride traditional allies. He has put his one true partner, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in grave political danger. More remarkably, Bush has allowed senior aides like Rumsfeld to publicly take gratuitous and unnecessary digs, calling France and Germany the "Old Europe," for example.
It's quite possible that Bush never could count on China or Russia, or even France and Germany, to back an invasion of Iraq. But it was well within reason to expect that these nations would stand back and say nothing -- if they had been afforded even a little of the old-fashioned Bush TLC. Now the widening divisions at the U.N. threaten to alter U.S. relationships with friends and rivals alike for years to come.
Even dad -- who had remained silent throughout the buildup to war -- can't hold his tongue anymore. In a rare public speech at Tufts University on Feb. 26, he seemed to be telegraphing his son to recognize the importance of friends on the world stage: "You've got to reach out to the other person. You've got to convince them that long-term friendship should trump short-term adversity." Listen to your father, Mr. President.
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Copyright 2003, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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