When a new US president first sits down behind the desk in the Oval Office, he has before him a metaphorical array of buttons and levers that make him the most powerful man in the world. In the short term at least, a US president can do virtually anything he likes, in steering the destiny of a country that is both the richest and most militarily powerful on the globe.
George W. Bush took over his father’s old desk simply because a few hundred Florida ballot papers were ruled invalid. It was a hesitant start for the new president. However, he paid off his political backers, rubbished the environmentalist lobby, repudiated the Kyoto Treaty and gave innocent amusement to everyone by continuing to massacre the English language, virtually every time he made any off-the-cuff comment. But the Bush presidency did not look as if it was going to go down in history as one of America’s greatest.
It could certainly never have been described as highly pro-active. The fumbling administration line on Palestine was largely dictated by the Zionist hawks who have run US Middle East policy for the last half-century. Bush got angry with Ariel Sharon because of the man’s over-bearing arrogance and obstinacy, but advisers quickly whispered in his ear that American presidents didn’t get angry with Israeli governments, even when they sank US warships and murdered US citizens. Bush’s reaction was to get back on script and become angry with Yasser Arafat instead. However, while not pro-active, Bush’s reactive power has been quite extraordinary. Sept. 11 gave the Bush White House a cause it could really pursue, with the outstanding approval of the US voters. Bush was going to get Afghanistan. The sudden collapse of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda forces after the fall of Mazar-e-Sharif — surprising even Washington — has emboldened Bush to believe that an attack upon Iraq will succeed with equal speed.
There are nevertheless substantial differences between Afghanistan and Iraq. The evidence of Afghan involvement in terror was incontrovertible. The evidence against Iraq hardly exists at all. When the US began its campaign to topple the Taleban, the world community, as represented by the United Nations was completely behind Washington. For Iraq, this is far from true. US diplomats are busy bullying and bribing key players such as the Russians to get behind the Bush belligerence. It seems that in order to get all his ducks in a row, Bush is prepared to leave no stone unturned, no arm untwisted, to alluring offer unmade. He is prepared indeed to throw over the United Nations itself, if it will not do as he wants. And all of this to destroy a regime which however unpleasant and brutal, has no proven link to international terrorism.
History will probably be much clearer about what it was that sent a laid-back, not overly intelligent president in vitriolic pursuit of a target that was not truly on the post-Sept. 11 terrorist list. Historians may well conclude, as some wags suggest, that when Bush first nestled into the big chair behind the Oval Office desk, while his father looked on proudly, he found a dusty button marked “Iraq”. “What’s this Dad?” the son asked his father, who replied “Well son, that’s the button that unfortunately, I never pushed hard enough”.
