Russian Offensive Against Georgia

In 1990, following Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the first President Bush (George H.W. Bush) worked with his Soviet counterpart (Mikhail Gorbachev) to roll back the dictator’s unprovoked aggression. With the Cold War over, the elder (and wiser) Bush viewed Saddam’s invasion as an opportunity to establish a precedent whereby the United States (and other responsible powers) would establish and enforce international norms aimed at creating and sustaining a more peaceful and stable world order. Chief among these standards, Bush argued, was the basic principle that the world community could not sit back and allow predatory regimes to violate the sovereignty of weaker states without inviting anarchy.

The senior Bush’s “new world order” was much derided at the time, particularly among paleoconservatives who thought international law was for wimps. But the logic and wisdom of Bush’s concept was rooted in ethical and political precedents that had a proven track record (compared to the alternatives) of engendering a more peaceful global order – i.e., the Treaty of Westphalia and FDR’s vision of the United Nations as a arbiter of international disputes.

It is one of history’s ironies George W. Bush has simultaneously undone his father’s legacy while proving the wisdom of it. Bush Junior’s invasion of Iraq, of course, was a not too subtle repudiation of everything the realists in the first Bush administration (Bush Sr., Brent Scowcroft, and James Baker) stood for, such as building a consensus among allies and establishing legitimacy by working through international institutions. Bush Jr., and the neoconservative idealists that steered him into the disaster of a “preventive” war to remake Iraq, in contrast, extolled the virtues of imperial hegemony, unilateralism, and the doctrine that might makes right. Their attitude at the time could be summed up by the ancient Roman dictum, “let them hate us so long as they fear us.”

The war in Iraq has brought about the worst of all possible worlds; the United States is neither liked nor respected. Russia’s invasion of neighboring Georgia – timed as it was while George W. Bush was attending the Olympic ceremonies with his buddy Vladimir Putin -- is symptomatic of how little respect the cagey Russian leadership has for the lame duck Bush. With the U.S. tied down in two inconclusive, mismanaged, and immensely draining wars the Bush administration can ill afford to open up another front by defending Georgia. As a result, Bush’s rhetoric about defending and spreading democracy will soon ring even more hollow as the administration is viewed as impotent by Eastern Europeans and others.

Russia’s invasion of Georgia may be viewed as ironic extension of Bush’s doctrine of preemption. In this case, Russia’s aggression was meant to preempt Georgia’s inclusion in NATO, which would have obligated a NATO response to Russia’s invasion. The Russian gambit, of course, is of great geo-strategic significance. After all, a crucial oil-pipeline passes through Georgia, and a pro-Western government in that country will help to contain an increasingly authoritarian Russia. Conversely, Russian autocrats would dearly love to reverse what they view as Washington’s (through NATO) encroachment on their sphere of influence.

For those of us who opposed the Iraq War -- on the grounds that the Bush administration’s unilateralism would weaken America’s position strategically and set the stage for resource wars -- the Russia-Georgia conflict may be a prelude of things to come.

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Bush’s State of Disunion

Bush’s State of the Union was a surreal exercise in self-delusion. Virtually everyone – Republicans and Democrats – recognize the Bush administration has been a catastrophic failure, but lawmakers on both sides of the aisles treated our hapless and incompetent president to rapturous applause. It may be a measure of how morally obtuse our political class is that a hoard of legislators sought the autograph of the man who presided over Katrina, Guantanamo, and the tragically mishandled invasion of Iraq.

All the available evidence suggests that George W. Bush is poised to eclipse Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, and Richard Nixon as the single worst chief executive in presidential history. Still, a dwindling number of Bush sycophants and apologists believe forty-three will be vindicated by history, just as Harry Truman has been. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to square their Pollyannaish views with the grim reality that over the last seven years the United States has suffered an unprecedented and precipitous decline in its national power and moral prestige. Put simply, Bush’s policies have left the United States isolated, drained, and divided while greatly exacerbating the strategic and economic challenges the country faces.

Former Bush scriptwriter, Michael Gerson, tries to put the best spin on Bush’s State of the Union in his column in the Washington Post. Bush, Gerson argues, has remained true to the principles of compassionate conservatism. His faith-based initiatives, AIDS relief efforts, and educational reforms associated with the No Child Left Behind legislation represent the "persistent advocacy" of a compassionate leader. Bush bashing has become an industry fueled on hatred, Gerson implies, of a decent man who aimed to do well.

I’ve never subscribed to the simple-minded view that Gergon attributes to Bush critics, namely, that Bush is "heartless and callous." No doubt, Bush’s legacy will include some admirable and worthy accomplishments. Ironically, however, I believe it is Bush messianic idealism coupled with his personal mediocrity that accounts for the unfolding multiple tragedies his administration is responsible for.

At one time or another, Bush has exhibited an axis-of-mental ills – dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, alcoholism – that probably go a long way to explaining the perverse mixture of hubris and ineptness he has displayed in office. It’s not that Bush is unintelligent, by any means, but his thought processes and reasoning are demonstrably defective. His persistent resort to cliches, mixed metaphors, and non-sequitars, for instance, is a sign of artful demagoguery at best, or serious cognitive deficits at worst.

It’s easy to laugh at the mixed metaphor that has become virtually synonymous with the Bush administration’s spectacular intelligence failure regarding Saddam’s phantom WMD -- "we can’t wait for the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud" – but as the pundit Karl Kraus recognized long ago, a person’s character is invariably revealed by the way they use language. It’s probably no accident that Bush failed to connect the dots prior to 9/11, and then subsequently connected dots where there was no logical connection (Iraq and al-Qaeda). Likewise, his decision to lump three disparate states into the infamous "axis-of-evil" is another example of Bush connecting the dots where no formal alliance or real-world connection existed.

Bush’s ADD almost certainly has everything to do with the lack of due diligence he displayed in the run up to the Iraq War. Whether it is the infamous sixteen words that everyone agrees should never have appeared in 2003 State of the Union, or the failure to prepare for the occupation of Iraq, Bush’s decision-making processes can best be characterized as rash, impetuous, reckless, and ill considered. He never planned for worst-case scenarios because he mistook prudence for pessimism. And he never allowed evidence or the facts to get in the way of his instincts. Bush’s ADD has made him a deeply irrational decision-maker.

Bush’s "leadership" has been a moral, strategic, and economic calamity for the United States. As recession looms, the deficit swells, and the dollar slumps to new lows it is becoming apparent to most Americans just how much the country has been steered in the wrong direction by the Bush administration. The architect of America’s great unraveling, however, remains largely oblivious to all this. How is this possible? I remember a Town Meeting where President Bush was asked about his decision to go to war with Iraq. Bush defended his war of choice, but surreally blamed Saddam for kicking the UN weapons inspectors out of the country. Much of the audience – and I’m sure Bush too – probably believed the U.S. had done everything it could to avoid war.

The only problem, of course, is that it wasn’t Saddam who kicked the inspectors out of Iraq, it was president Bush that ordered them out because he insisted the inspections weren’t working. Another couple of weeks, Hans Blix contented later, and we’d have known for sure that Saddam never had the alleged WMD stockpiles. Even after the fact, Bush couldn’t admit the truth. It’s a telling revelation of a president who will probably go down in history as the political equivalent of Inspector Clouseau.

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Charles Krauthammer: Mission Accomplished II

The physicist Wolfgang Pauli once remarked to a colleague about the lecture they were attending, noting that the speaker was so off the mark that "he isn't even wrong." I often have the same feeling reading Charles Krauthammer’s mediocre missives in the Washington Post. According to Krauthammer, Iraq is on the verge of turning out as a major strategic accomplishment for the United States. Before Krauthammer declares Mission Accomplished II, however, there are some inconvenient facts he needs to reckon with.

Krauthammer argues that an enduring U.S. military presence in Iraq will insure America has a critical ally in the heart of the Middle East. Neither the American people nor the Iraqis have signed on to the idea having permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. If the heavily fortified bunker complex that is the Green Zone is any indication, then America’s presence will be like Fort Apache in injun territory – i.e., an unwelcome presence that continues to fuel extremist resentment against what the jihadists view as an imperial and infidel occupation. Put simply, a large American footprint in Iraq is more likely to inspire extremism than defuse it.

General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy is certainly a marked improvement over what came before. However, the welcome reduction in violence probably has much to do with the fact that many of the factions in Iraq are simply waiting the Americans out. They know, for instance, that the surge is temporary and that the Bush administration’s days are numbered. As one Iraqi put it, the current lull in violence is part of the "great deception" as the various Iraq militias prepare for the day when the United States is forced to scale back forces. Iraqis various factions, after all, would rather fight one another tomorrow than take on American firepower today.

What are the prospects for a political reconciliation in Iraq? The whole point of the surge, after all, was to buy time for the various factions to hammer out oil revenue sharing agreements and the like. In fact, pervasive corruption and black market activity – not to mention the reality that petro-politics in the Middle East is a invariably a zero-sum game – makes it highly unlikely that the various factions can arrive at a sustainable political settlement. Presently, the U.S. military is buying off Iraq’s private militias (convincing them it is better to take our money than fight us), but unless the Bush administration can manage a breakthrough on the political front this approach is likely to prove ephemeral.

The Iraq war must be understood in the context of our larger strategic interests. It has hampered our efforts in Afghanistan, diverted resources from capturing or killing bin Laden, worked to the advantage of America’s chief adversary in the region (Iran), and radicalized a new generation of anti-American extremists. The invasion of Iraq has also decimated America’s credibility, leaving it isolated and drained at a time when China appears on a trajectory to eclipse the United States within the next several decades. The extraordinary costs of the whole enterprise (by some estimates the invasion will cost each American $9,250 by the end of the decade), coupled with a very uncertain potential payoff (a less radicalized Arab world), make the whole venture seem about as sensible as buying Lotto tickets to avoid foreclosing on a mortgage one can’t afford.

The historian Arnold Toynbee observed that societies that remake themselves are more apt to succeed than societies that attempt to remake the rest of the world. Would the United States be better off investing in its own infrastructure and the energy efficiencies and alternative fuels of the future than pouring money into Iraq? We have truly outsourced our future. Of course, neoconservatives like Krauthammer will never admit just how far off the mark they’ve been all along.

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