For Bush, A Sense of History -- And Fate
Response to Iraq Reflects Self-Beliefs
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 9, 2003; Page A01
In the coming weeks, all signs indicate, President Bush will launch the first war without direct provocation in the nation's history.
The consequences of invading Iraq, supporters and opponents agree, will extend far beyond the Tigris and Euphrates. Repercussions of the war are likely to define not just the Bush presidency, but also the U.S. role in the world and even the course of domestic policy for years to come.
It is the largest of gambles -- except that Bush, in rhetoric and in temperament, sees it not as a gamble but as a historical inevitability. As he has upped the ante in Iraq by linking the war to the future of the United Nations, NATO and American leadership in the world, he appears confident and serene in the face of bitter worldwide protest.
"This is his moment; this is his Omaha Beach," said Craig Stapleton, a close friend who is ambassador to the Czech Republic. "He knows exactly what to do."
This confidence despite the risks and the overwhelming opposition reveals much about Bush's personality and worldview. Those close to Bush say the Sept. 11 attacks gave him not just new meaning to his presidency but a new purpose to his life. "The nation must understand, this is now the focus of my administration," he said two days later.
Bush has come to view his leadership of post-9/11 America as a matter of fate, or of God's will. He has said the country is "called to defend our nation and to lead the world to peace," and he often says the mission is to extend liberty, "God's gift to every human being in the world."
With that assumption, it is almost impossible to imagine Bush confining the war on terrorism to al Qaeda. Instead, he quickly embraced the most sweeping foreign policy proposal his most hawkish advisers had developed -- a vision of American supremacy and preemption of emerging threats -- and that policy leads inexorably to Iraq, and beyond.
Bush's aides believe the president made up his mind about Iraq in the early days after Sept. 11. He resolved to do everything possible to prevent it from happening again. "September 11 gave him a never-again sense," one senior aide said. "He never wants to stand again before another pile of rubble. He'll err on the side of being overly vigilant."
Bush has said as much himself. "The price of doing nothing exceeds the price of taking action," he said in his Thursday news conference.
Though Bush asserts with certainty that he is taking the least risky option, there is much at stake. If all goes well, Bush's Iraq war may be compared to President Harry S. Truman's Berlin Airlift, which represented the implementation of a new U.S. foreign policy that ultimately won the Cold War. If it goes badly, it may be remembered in the same way as President Woodrow Wilson's "war to end wars," which instead was followed by instability, economic collapse and genocide.
Historian Walter Russell Mead, of the Council on Foreign Relations, said Bush and his aides "are aware that major issues are at stake and they're playing for very big stakes. At the very least, they're aware that their political lives are at stake."
In the worst-case scenario, a protracted, messy war and rebuilding in Iraq lead to mass U.S. and Iraqi civilian casualties, more terrorism at home, an oil crisis, radicalization of the Middle East and the fall of friendly governments, and an isolated and disliked United States whose alliances -- even highly valued free-trade arrangements -- disintegrate.
"Potentially, it is the deconstruction of alliances as we have known them throughout the postwar period," said Leon Fuerth, who was Vice President Al Gore's national security adviser. Bush "has done a best-case analysis of what's going to follow here. But every good thing he projects could be turned on its head, and there's no way of knowing for sure which way the odds run."
Even friends caution Bush against naive optimism. "This is the first hyperpower war, where the dominant power in the system sees a huge problem that it is determined to resolve even with quite serious opposition of major players," said Eliot Cohen, a hawkish theorist at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies.
Publicly, at least, Bush has left no room for such concerns. He and his aides have outlined a quick and successful overthrow of Hussein and rebuilding of a democratic Iraq that spreads peace through the Middle East. Establishing unchallenged world dominance for the United States, it cows the leaders of Iran, North Korea and al Qaeda. In this view, the domestic economy would soar, and help Bush and his party in 2004 to a victory that would realign the country's political allegiances.
One reason for Bush's confidence under pressure is the unshakeable belief of his advisers that this scenario is likely. Bush's serenity "comes from the conviction he's on the right course," said Richard Perle, an influential conservative who leads a Pentagon advisory board. "He knows exactly what he's doing. He knows where he's going."
Another member of that panel, former Reagan administration official Kenneth Adelman, says the Iraq war "will transform the region towards peace and decency." Adelman believes Bush shares the view. "The only thing I've heard from him is, 'Imagine if we didn't do something like this,' " he said.
There is always the possibility that Bush's placid confidence comes from his access to intelligence information that indicates the Iraq war will be clean and simple. "He has all the information about what can and can't be achieved, and he knows much more than his opponents," a sympathetic Republican Senate aide said.
But some historians and strategists say the true explanation is deep in Bush's psyche, and that confidence in his momentous decision is consistent with his character, which draws sharp lines between good and evil, black and white.
Bush's religious devotion encourages such distinctions. Bush implies but does not directly assert that he is doing God's work. Still, those who share his religious beliefs say it is natural to assume that Bush believes he is divinely inspired.
"It seems as if he is on an agenda from God," said Jim Cody, a Tennessee Christian broadcaster who was at a convention of religious broadcasters Bush addressed last month. "The Scriptures say God is the one who appoints leaders. If he truly knows God, that would give him a special anointing."
Cody's friend, Steve Clark of the Faith Baptist Tabernacle in Jamestown, Tenn., concurred that "Divine Providence" has a role in Bush's actions. "At certain times, at certain hours in our country, God has had a certain man to hear His testimony," he said.
Those close to Bush say he takes comfort from prayer, but not policy. "It certainly gives him inner strength and conviction," said Brad Freeman, a friend. "It's his religion, but also it's just his makeup. He's always been a firm believer in making a decision, once he knows the facts, and sticking with it."
Bush admires leaders who have overcome adversity by finding their life's mission, much as he has gone from drinking too much to building a new world architecture. Asked during the presidential campaign to name his favorite book, Bush cited "The Raven," a biography of Sam Houston that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930.
The book describes Houston going from the man the Cherokees called "Big Drunk" to being the father of Texas. "His first thought, his constant thought, was to atone for the period of his delinquency," wrote the author, Marquis James. "He would do something grand. He would capture an empire. . . ." As Houston found himself in Texas, Bush found himself in terrorism. "It just leaps out at you from the book," said historian Richard Brookhiser, author of an article, "The Mind of George W. Bush," in the April issue of the Atlantic Monthly. "He perceived that this was his job and the only job of his life."
Houston represents a strain in U.S. political leadership that can be traced through the generations to Bush. Houston was a friend of President Andrew Jackson, who favored an aggressive and unilateral world view and is admired by Bush's aides. Also in that strain of leadership was President James Polk, another westerner who aggressively pursued America's "manifest destiny" and launched the Mexican War, called "Mr. Polk's War." Polk, in turn, was a favorite of Truman, a plainspoken man whose decisive leadership at the end of the second world war and beginning of the Cold War inspires Bush aides.
Historian Douglas Brinkley, director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans, calls Bush a "rough and ready" president in the mold of Jackson, Polk and Truman.
"He's absorbed those traditions, this very tough-line attitude," Brinkley said. "It's a way for him to get intellectual certainty without getting involved in deeper questions. He can cling tenaciously to a belief. When there's a crisis, he resorts to a tough rhetorical line or threat."
Bush's preference for binary, black-and-white logic has led some to wonder whether the administration has thought through the far-reaching consequences of an Iraq war. "I don't think it's in their nature to be grand conceptualizers," said SAIS's Cohen, who also serves on the Pentagon advisory panel.
There is also evidence that Bush's confidence has been interpreted abroad as bullying. Osman Faruk Logoglu, the Turkish ambassador to the United States, said in a meeting last week with Washington Post editors and reporters that the administration needlessly complicated the effort to gain use of Turkish territory in a war on Iraq.
"They always insisted on an early answer, on an immediate answer," he said. "Had they been perhaps more relaxed and had they given more latitude in terms of time, the [Turkish] government would have found it easier."
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a student of history, maintained that Bush's apparent serenity on the eve of a world-reordering war is part of his managerial style.
"When he was a younger man and owner of a baseball team [the Texas Rangers], he picked the manager and coaches and then sat in the stands," Gingrich said.
But Gingrich said the hesitation in stating the full extent of Bush's world vision is "confusing" foreign countries. "The most powerful nation in the world must be understandable, not merely formidable," he said. And what Bush needs to convey to the world is how much bigger than Iraq the coming war will be.
"I think history will record that a remarkably strong president happened to be in office at a juncture where weapons of mass destruction and terrorism rewrote all the rules of engagement in international relations," Gingrich said. "It will record that the president moved beyond old institutions and developed a new set of alliances."
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