It’s Kind Of Ironic
It's one of those trite little phrases that everyone knows and uses all the time. A hoary, old phrase that, while over-used to the point of tears, still has a ring of truth that makes it indispensable to describe some situations.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
And so it is with George Bush. He has been absolutely excoriated for his "cowboy" diplomacy. He has been sworn at and screamed at, mocked, demonized, belittled, bullied and cajoled. His critics charge he didn't work with allies, he shunned the international community and he was a unilateralist hegemon. Hell, to some, he's the evil genius (yet somehow thoroughly stupid) who has robbed America of every bit of international credibility that Clinton built up by judicious lip biting.
So now, when he tries to go the route so many damned him for not taking before, he is hearing catcalls and shrieks of, "Ha ha!". And now the insinuation that this is yet another plot.
Let's imagine, and this is purely hypothetical, that President Bush has already decided that he will not leave office in January 2009 without a satisfactory resolution of the Iranian nuclear problem. Let's imagine that he has already determined that if he cannot obtain Iran's agreement to dismantle its nuclear weapons program voluntarily and verifiably, then he will order some form of military action to destroy as much of that program as possible before he leaves. Let's imagine that he has resolved not to end his two terms in office the way Bill Clinton ended his, by leaving every major international crisis — from Iraq to Iran to North Korea to al-Qaeda — for his successor.
Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that Bush had made such a decision. What would he be doing right now? The answer is that he might be doing exactly what he is doing.
He might be engaging in a prodigious and extended diplomatic effort to bring together the international community and, failing that, America's leading democratic allies in a unified effort to convince the Iranians that they should voluntarily give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
And he would have learned from his Iraq experience that, to be successful in the present, profoundly unserious international environment, a diplomatic effort requires two things: evident sincerity and almost infinite patience.
That's right. It's all an evil set-up. A ploy to give Bush a military option right at the end of his presidency. To secure his legacy, you see. It's funny, but the only presidents I have seen really worried about their "legacy" before they left office were Carter and Clinton. The others pretty well didn't really seem to care or, in the case of Johnson and Nixon, already knew how he would be portrayed. But the "legacy" thing is extraordinarily important to reporters for some reason.
But Kagan spins his little yarn, ignoring that there's a little thing called Congress that might feel differently about letting a lame-duck president start a shooting war.
By Paul in Brookline, Thursday, 13 July , 2006 @ 10:22 am
Umm…. I think Kagan’s op-ed is intended to support the President and refute the “unilateral cowboy” image advanced by the MSM. Rather than pursuing a “rush to war”, as the left would have it, or bumbling along, Kagan’s theses is the Bush is pursuing a well thought out. long term strategy. I hope he’s right, and I hope that we don’t run out of time before the strategy bears fruit.
Kagan is generally one of the more responsible and perceptive voices on the GWOT. I don’t always agree with his columns, but he’s no Maureen Dowd or E. J. Dionne.
By Gaius, Thursday, 13 July , 2006 @ 10:29 am
I don’t know about that. The problem is that Congress still has to authorize force. Would they? Highly unlikely.