Method to His Madness?
Bush has a wild hair up his ass. Everywhere you turn you can hear
someone on his staff banging on the drums about a war
with Iraq. It’s inevitable. It’s required.
Bush is a crazy man, or so it may
seem.
Howard Finneman, who wrote the article linked above has a
theory,
which is interesting if nothing else. He makes the case that
the efforts of the Bush administration to
begin military action in Iraq are not the acts of a desperate
warmonger and not the acts of a country happy to start a war.
All the chain rattling may be part truth and part political ploy.
Mr. Finneman makes a strong, if not interesting case. Junior Bush
has of history of reckless abandon, followed by tough but reasonable
bargaining. It happened in his term as governor and it happened
in Afghanastan. Is it happening again?
Maybe; maybe not.
There’s no denying that the United States is putting Iraq under pressure.
The past several weeks have been filled with growing setiment within the
Bush camp that Iraq is the next destination of our military.
Troops are
moving; here we
come.
Then, Bush surprises the world with an excellent
speech.
We don’t want to go it alone. We await the actions of the UN. We want
the support of the world. He paints the UN into a corner: enforce your
rules or get out of the way.
For the first time in a while, the United States acted as a leader, not just a participant, in the United Nations. The idea is a pleasing one, and one that
shouldn’t seem like past history. Forcing the United Nations to your will is
no easy task but Bush layed out the cards: if you don’t lead, we will..
The world reaction was surprising. All of a sudden Saudi Arabia opens
its
airfields.
Countries begin lining up in support of a strong
UN resolution backed up by force. Most surprising of all, Iraq submits
to weapon inspections. We must appease this madman before
while he is being reasonable.
How does Bush react? He reacts with more than a little
skepticism.
Let’s see it. We are not backing down from our plan. Hey Congress,
get over
here.
It’s all too soon to see how it will shake out but, for now, the signs are
encouraging. All of a sudden – and maybe just for the moment,
Mr. Hussein
understands
cause and effect. Continue to block weapons inpsectors and your next visitors
will be packing military hardware with a letters “US” on them.
As noted by William Saletan in a recent
article on the
Slate:
would be better off with unfettered U.N. weapons inspections backed by the
serious threat of force, you’re probably right. But if you get what you want,
thank Bush.
You don’t have to say what you mean to get what you want. It’s an interesting
theory and one that seems to be supported more and more by facts.
If nothing else, it shows that, unlike his predecessor, it helps to have advisors
other than those that spend an inordinate amount of time on their knees.
Porter
September 25th, 2002 at 11:06 pm #
So you’re in favor of the “bold and audacious goals” school of leadership where success is achieved only through the utter fear of failure to attain the impossible? It’s a rather demoralizing approach in the long run…