IS BUSH A REVOLUTIONARY?
By Lee P. Ruddin
History News Network, WA
Oct 1 2006
Mr. Ruddin holds an LL.B; MRes (International Security) and a PgCert
(History: Imperialism and Culture).
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 suitor 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.