Strategery: Or How Bush Keeps Surprising

AndrewSullivan.com ^ | 11/18/01 | Andrew Sullivan

[Jean S]

With amazing swiftness and surprising finality, the enemy, once thought tenacious, caved last week. I refer not to the Taliban but to the chattering classes - especially its left-liberal sections. Never before in the field of human conflict have so many armchair generals been exposed as such idiots in such a short period of time. They will not learn, of course. The Guardian and the BBC will move on - with barely a time for taking breath - to yet another negativist attack on the naïve president and his gung-ho aides. But the sudden turn in the war surely suggests that another reasssessment is now due: not simply of the war but of the style and substance of George W. Bush's presidency.

Simply put: the success of this war so far is incompatible with the image of the president so beloved of the press corps in America and Britain. Let's take the now teetering cliches one by one. First, the notion that Bush is a unilateralist cowboy; that he shoots from the hip and knows nothing about diplomacy. Everything since September 11 shows the contrary. There was no sudden lashing out. There was an elaborate attempt to build a coalition. There was a slow and steady build-up of forces, and a carefully orchestrated rhetorical message for domestic and foreign consumption. The critical allies in this were somewhat unlikely ones for a Texas cowboy: a New Labour prime minister, a Pakistani dictator, a Russian president. Yet each piece was carefully assembled, and manipulated for maximum effect. If this is what cowboys do, then the Wild West is a deeply civilized place.

The second cliché is that Bush is a man essentially controlled by his aides - a puppet wihtout his own ideas, agenda or strategy. Again, there is simply nothing empirically to suggest that this is true. A prince-regent controlled by aides tends to be dominated by a senior figure who actually runs the show. In this case, Dick Cheney was the appointed eminence grise. But Cheney has receded from view these past few weeks. And if you look at Bush's team, you will see that, in fact, it has a variety of wings and interests, each of which can only go to the president for approval. There is Cheney, who remains central, but there is also Powell, whose alleged estrangement from the president is over-blown. So far in this crisis, neither has been neutered. Powell - and his supporters in the National Security Council and the State Department - has clearly had a voice in strategy. It was Powell who cautioned against too heavy a reliance on the Northern Alliance in the last month. Bush agreed. It was Powell who was central to bringing in Pakistani president Musharraf into the coalition. Bush signed on. It was Powell who went on various diplomatic missions to say soothing things to the various scared Arab dictators. It was Powell and Musharraf who persuaded Bush last weekend to say emphatically that he did not want the Northern Alliance to enter Kabul.

On the other side, you have Cheney's chum Donald Rumsfeld, the indefatigable and hilariously frank secretary of defense. Rumsfeld has been a consistent supporter of decisive military action, of war as an instrument of diplomacy rather than the other way round. His close relationship with Cheney, and his support from Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, give him an important seat at the table. And as the days went by, and diplomacy failed to marshall a new Afgani government in advance of victory, Rumsfeld gained the upper hand. Since the lightning success of the past week, that hand has been strengthened.

But Powell is still in play. The State Department is now warning of the need to ensure that the Northern Alliance plays a "very subordinate role" in any future post-Taliban Afghani government. They are very worried about a destabilization in Pakistan. The Rumsfeldians, on the other hand, are still complaining about the State Department. "What you're seeing now is the same [State Department] handwringing that held up the bombing," a "senior administration official" complained to the hawkish New Republic last week. "The arguments never change."

And who decides between these various camps? The president, of course. This is the first president to have a business degree and he knows what management is. He doesn't regard Colin Powell as a "wet." He regards him as an important part of the hand of cards he has to play. Depending on circumstances, Bush sides with one camp, then the other. He plays these various voices like an expert - and, unlike his father, manages to keep them all inside the tent. He gave diplomacy a chance two weeks ago; and tried micro-managing the war with Powell's help. Then he let slip the dogs of war. In all this, Bush has also been amazingly disciplined - about work, but also rest. Unlike Tony Blair whose workaholism has made him look close to collapse, Bush has delegated deeply, retained his personal space, kept his cool, and prepared himself for a long, long campaign. He's still on the treadmill for up to an hour a day, and gets to bed by 9.30pm. The only thing that is non-negotiable is the destruction of global terrorism.

The third cliché about Bush is that he an ingenue, muddling his way through matters he doesn't understand. Like most cliches, this is partly true. Bush didn't know the name of the Pakistani president a year ago. But the happy corrollary of this is that Bush doesn't come to the table with pre-cooked ideas about the world. He is extremely shrewd and sizes up people and opportunities as they arise. He has a deeply Tory approach to foreign affairs: a sizing up of potential adversaries, a deep awareness of national self-interest, and a constant capacity for improvisation. He had no strong preconceptions, for example, about the role of Russia in the world before he became president. Yet, long before September 11, it was Bush who decided that Vladimir Putin was key to American foreign policy in the new century. He made that decision simply by meeting Putin. Last week's Crawford summit was a further sign of that deep engagement.

At the time, this outreach to Russia seemed a wild gamble, and was frowned on by many conservatives, with long memories and fixed views. After September 11, it seems an intelligent prelude to the most significant geo-political shift of the last two months: Russia's radical move toward the West. And don't think Russia's clash with OPEC last week was purely accidental. As the price of petrol sinks toward $10 a barrel, and the U.S. economy is given a stimulus just when it's needed, Putin knows he is building up credit. And what could be more important for the West's long-term economic and political stability than the development of oil supplies from sources outside the Middle East? Where might those supplies be found? Ah, yes, Russia. It takes an inexperienced but shrewd pragmatist to seize opportunities like these. Freed from too much prior habits of thought, Bush was able to look imaginatively ahead.

And so this deeply pragmatic, fast-learning but determined president now faces the hardest decision of all. That decision is Iraq. Already in Washington, the long jockeying within the administration is intensifying. Right now, most of the focus is rightly on Afghanistan. But the battle over the second phase of the war is about to commence in earnest. There is no doubt that Powell's State Department in alliance with London and Karachi are urging appeasement. But it is equally likely that Paul Wolfowitz, whose role can only be enhanced by last week, will be marshalling the arguments in favor of action, with Rumsfeld and Cheney in cautious support. The only absolute certainty is that one man will make the final decision: the same shrewd, quiet and still-under-estimated figure who has been calling the shots all along. Think of the last man whom Western liberals derided as a cowboy, Ronald Reagan. Or better still, think of the last ingenue president from the middle of nowhere who figured out problems as they came along and ended up shaping the world for generations. Think Truman.

[white trash redneck]

Looking at your past posts, it quickly becomes obvious that you are not familiar with the issues and do not have anything original to contribute.

20 posted on 11/20/01 2:23 AM Mountain by bayourod

It appears that somebody was bored at 2 AM and had run out of coloring books to amuse himself.

You've obviously mistaken me for somebody who cares what you think, but thanks for sharing, anyway.