Is Bush a Revolutionary?

Many detractors have berated President George W. Bush, condemning him for jettisoning two centuries of custom. Lafayette History Professor Arnold Offner was just one who asserted that Bush’s new policy (the ‘Bush Doctrine’) was an extremely radical--indeed revolutionary--departure from American practice. National Security Tsar Stephen Hadley has even weighed in (though not intending to disparage his chief) underlining the revolutionary ethos of his boss's doctrine.  Across the pond too, commentators have drained their pen cartridges accentuating the steroid–driven American exceptionalism reigning over contemporary US foreign policy. Undergirding such ‘knowledgeable ignorance’ lay in the cavalier dismissal of ‘Dubya’ as brainless or as non–compos mentis as King George III. Put simply, this apocalyptic tsunami of ink projects that Bush is a Czarina Alexandra–like vacant vassal hijacked by a baleful neo–conservative cabal–anguished by the worst case of Stockholm syndrome–who are executing their revolutionary manifesto.         

The magnetism of employing history to resolve foreign dilemmas remains a subject of ongoing contestation. Ernest May has carried out the most sustained exploration of the phenomenon. In Lessons of the Past: The Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy, May effectively argues that to a large extent, America's Cold War strategy was supported by analogies to the appeasement policies of the 1930s and the necessity of avoiding a repeat of history.

Inspired by the British–born Harvard don Niall Ferguson, I illumine the telestorian’s (my word) affirmation, whereby “the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq–in their long–run historical context, suggest … that they represent less of a break with the past than is commonly believed.” Unlike former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, I do not seek precedents to refute any allegations of wrongdoing; rather I refute the revolutionary brand.

“The [9/11] terrorist attacks influenced Bush the way Pearl Harbour affected Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) and the way the advance of the Communists in Greece and Turkey after World War II affected Harry Truman.” So stated Fred Barnes, author of the recent dazzling book entitled Rebel–in–Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush. From FDR to Truman, a novel policy backing the use of military force seeking to substitute tyranny was executed. However, on national security, the executive editor of the Weekly Standard professed that “Bush is indisputably Reagan’s successor. Like Reagan, Bush is a moralist and an idealist” (on steroids) vigorously tackling the gravest threat to US security in his respective time.

However, is Reagan the most fitting analogy for Bush? By the time Reagan became President, the US had been fighting World War III (Cold War) for 33 years; by contrast, World War IV (as named by Norman Podhoretz) started only after Bush entered the White House. “In this respect,” Podhoretz states “it is not Reagan to whom Bush should be compared, but Harry Truman.” In 1947, at a time when countless commentators pooh–poohed the Soviet menace, Truman believed it was an aggressive totalitarian force, which was plunging the world into a disparate world war. Of similar ilk, Bush understood that (Islamo) Bolshevism was “the heir of all the murderous ideologies of the 20th century.” However, such scholarly analogies can be rapidly dismissed when just simply quoting the President. It would appear that Bush does not seem to be concerned about his place in history. “History. We won’t know,” he told the journalist Bob Woodward in 2003. “We’ll all be dead.” The philosophy of John Buchan is apposite at this juncture: “If the past to a man is nothing but a dead hand, then in common honesty he must be an advocate of revolution.”

Actually, the scaffolding of President Bush’s National Security Strategy (NSS) was constructed by another president, President Eisenhower, practically five decades previously. The liaison is all too evident. Both Presidents announced their doctrine before a joint session of congress. Together they stressed that Middle Easterners could no longer remain on the sidelines–they had to declare themselves in the contest between freedom and Bolshevism (both conventional and Ferguson’s ‘Islamo’)--“to stand up and be counted,” and “you are either with us or against us.” Furthermore, both doctrines were borne by the catalysing events orchestrated by quasi–Caliphs: Gamal Abdel Nasser and Osama Bin Laden.         

In the wake of the (initial) astoundingly clear–cut victory in Afghanistan, Bush, Cheney and Pentagon officials experienced an indistinguishable rush of national power and corresponding illusion of omnipotence that the McKinley administration had experienced after the “splendid little war” against Spain. In 1899, the McKinley administration set aside qualms regarding overseas expansion and annexed the Philippines. In 2002, the Bush administration sidetracked objections to invade Iraq. Niall Ferguson cites Mark Twain who described McKinley as the man, “who had sent US troops to fight with a disgraced musket under a polluted flag and suggested that the flag in question should have the white stripes painted black and the stars and stripes replaced by the skull and bones.” 

Despite the vast repertoire of historical continuity in US foreign policy–both venerable and ominous–history does not always bequeath laudable precedents. However, when overruled is this revolutionary? I would concede that the fundamental departure of the Bush Doctrine was not so much the theory as the practice. When Bush stated that he was “prepared to fight for freedom in every corner of the world,” he actually meant it–bizarrely enough. This is conflicting with Woodrow Wilson’s empty universal rhetoric. The 28th President was unwilling to intervene in the Middle Eastern expanse to prevent the Armenian genocide at the hand of the Ottoman Turks. Moreover, Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address cast aside the 70 year–old American policy of supporting stable but friendly dictatorships in the Arab world. The 43rd President confirmed that, “for decades, free nations have tolerated oppression in the Middle East for the sake of stability. In practice, this approach has brought little stability and much oppression. I have changed this policy.” Readers must comprehend that advancing national interests by overturning a deteriorating status quo is not revolutionary–or nihil novi.  

As Frederick Jackson Turner spoke upon Woodrow Wilson’s death, “fate has dealt hardly with him, but time, the great restorer, and let us believe, history, will do him justice.” Conversely, history may illuminate that the Iraq war is comparable to Germany’s annexation of Alsace–Lorraine in 1871, as an event that set the world on a downward trajectory. So far as the implementation of Bush’s strategy goes, it is still, according to Podhoretz, “early days–roughly comparable to 1952 in the history of the Truman Doctrine. As with the Truman Doctrine then, the Bush Doctrine has thus far acted only in the first few scenes” of the morality play on the global stage.

“George W. Bush’s presidency appears headed for colossal historical disgrace.” These were the opening words in Sean Wilentz’s article in a recent edition of Rolling Stone. The Princeton historian further questioned whether Bush “will be remembered as the very worst president in all of American history.” Well, there have been presidents–Harry Truman was indeed one–who have left the Oval office in ostensible ignominy, only to rebound in the estimates of later academics. Let us trust Bush is next in line.