Time to Hold Bush's Feet to the Fire: Why the "Bush Doctrine" Flap Matters

George W. Bush had to be doing high-fives over the way Sarah Palin's embarrassing cluelessness about the "Bush Doctrine" (go ahead, watch it one more time) has been parsed and explained away by even once self-respecting pundits. Bush is desperately hoping the American people's short attention span will prevent them from remembering how badly he damaged the U.S. role in the world with his elevation of a shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later recklessness into national doctrine.

This race needs to be about George Bush and his record. Every day lost to this or that distraction - anything other than a focus on the Bush train wreck - is another gift for Bush and his hopes of escaping accountability.

To anyone not carrying water for the astonishingly unscrupulous fantasists pulling the strings in the McCain campaign, the most important feature of the Bush record is the disastrous war in Iraq that has to date claimed more than 4,150 U.S. soldiers (and countless Iraqis). And for what? The security situation has unquestionably improved in Iraq, but genuine progress toward a lasting political solution remains minimal and anyone who claims not to be concerned about fresh outbreaks of large-scale violence erupting in the coming months must be in denial.

The misnamed "surge" (in plain, non-Orwellian language, it was an escalation) might as well be called the Surge to Nowhere. It just kicked the can forward so the next president will get stuck with the consequences of Bush's misguided and misbegotten adventure in Iraq, and Bush and his enablers can continue to spin, spin, spin away the ugly truth of what that national mistake has cost us.

Not so long ago, the notorious neocon Charles Krauthammer was raising questions about Sarah Palin's qualifications to be a heartbeat away. That was all of a week and half ago when he argued in a column that "The vice president's only constitutional duty of any significance is to become president at a moment's notice" and, quite bluntly, "Palin is not ready."

So when Palin showed how deeply incurious she is about the national politics of the last eight years with her blatant stalling to a question about the "Bush Doctrine," Krauthammer naturally stepped up to decry her ignorance, right? Not exactly. Instead, he weighed in with a September 13 column, "Charlie Gibson's Gaffe," pushing the patently dishonest notion that "there is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine" and that there have been "four distinct meanings" of the term. The Washington Post even followed up with a front-page "news" story seeking to make the same point, upping the ante by quoting a former Bush administration official claiming there have been SEVEN distinct Bush doctrines.

Would they please knock it off with this stuff? Sure, others have used the term in other ways, including Krauthammer himself in a June 4, 2001, Weekly Standard article that no one but Krauthammer remembers, but ask any credible political scientist or foreign-policy analyst and what comes to mind is the Bush argument hauled out in the run-up to the Iraq War, namely, that in the post-9/11 world the United States would attack other countries not just in cases where they posed an imminent danger, but where they might later pose an imminent danger. Hence the notion of preventive war. This is what Condi Rice was talking about when she said on national TV that the "smoking gun" cannot be a "mushroom cloud."

The notion that there's any serious doubt over the meaning of the Bush Doctrine is as credible as the notion that there is any serious doubt in the scientific community on the basic reality of global warming. All it takes is a quick Amazon search of books with "Bush Doctrine" in the title to make the point.

Here, off the front flap of the first book that popped up in a recent search, In Defense of the Bush Doctrine, (February 2008) by Robert G. Kaufman: "Bush responded (to 9/11) with a bold and controversial grand strategy for waging a preemptive Global War on Terror, which has ignited passionate debate about the purpose of American power and the nation's proper role in the world."

The second book that popped up is To Lead the World: American Strategy after the Bush Doctrine, (July 2008), by Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro, which makes a crisp and clear argument against the Bush Doctrine: "(T)he United States should pursue preventive war only in extremis, because preventive war casts the United States in the role of aggressor and so can undercut its legitimacy in the eyes of others. Preventive war should remain an option but should be waged only with substantive international approval. Accordingly, the 2002 'Bush doctrine,' which embedded unilateral preventive war in U.S. strategy, as a regular instrument of policy, should be dropped."

The third book that popped up at Amazon, The Bush Doctrine and the War on Terrorism: Global Reactions, Global Consequences, (April 2006), by Mary Buckley and Robert Singh, offers a fascinating treatment on the tradition of doctrines being attributed to political leaders, with the Brezhnev Doctrine running smack into the Reagan Doctrine, and notes that the Bush Doctrine represented "an embrace of preventive war as a supplement to traditional deterrence."

"The Bush Doctrine thus takes its place in an extended family of grand statements of global purposes," the authors argue.

Forget Sarah Palin. As the Iraq War was a distraction against the real fight against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the outcry over McCain's anointment of Palin as a national curiosity is a distraction from the core issue: Do we as a country vote to reject the politics of George Bush, above all the misguided rationale for the Iraq War, dressed up as the Bush Doctrine? Or do we muddle along, lost in a fog of trivia and misinformation, blind to the need to chart a new course based on informed consideration of what went wrong? Anyone claiming the Palin "Bush Doctrine" moment was anything but alarming - or pushing the nihilistic notion that there IS no "Bush Doctrine - wants the fog of misinformation to prevail.

Comments

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

Robert Singh, another of the co-authors I quoted in the post, checks in with the following observation:

"I tend to agree with you that identifying different Bush Doctrines over time doesn't really pass the test of accuracy - my take would be to suggest that the Doctrine was more or less formed by the publication of NSS 2002 (if one adds in the various post-9/11 Bush speeches too). The turn of events then saw the administration stress, or alternatively de-emphasize, different aspects of that Doctrine. Again, just as the Truman Doctrine of containment was not precisely what George Kennan had envisaged, and just as its application differed significantly through subsequent administrations, nonetheless its basic framework held for the Cold War. I suspect something similar has/is happening now."

Here is the document he's referencing:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf

[napapjd]

"When a more objective history of this period is written" and when we "compare the cost and mistakes" of this war vs. others in the past, perhaps some weight will be given to these facts not mentioned by Kaufman in his three posts: In a country of around 30 million people, this war has left at least a half-million and probably closer to one million citizens dead; at least 2 million (probably 3 million) have been wounded; and 2.7 million are internally displaced and more than 2 million externally displaced. And this doesn't even get into the question of orphans, of a destroyed social structure, of the whole world of calamity that is Iraq. As Juan Cole has written, "The apocalypse that the United States has unleashed upon Iraq is among the greatest catastrophes to befall any country in the past 50 years."

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

I consider Lincoln, FDR, and Truman Great Presidents. I consider Lincoln and FDR our greatest commanders in chief. Yet the Bush Administration's trials, tribulations, and mistakes pale in comparison. When a more objective history of this period is written, David Petraeus may emerge as Bush's General Sherman, who snatched victory from the jaws of expected defeat.

What is not novel about the Bush Doctrine is the commitment to democratic regime change as a war aim.
This represents one of the most succesful and noble aspects of American grand strategy since FDR and Churchill employed it with regard to Nazi Germany. Similarly, we insisted that the nature of the Soviet regime was the root cause of the Cold War. Accordingly, vigilant containment sought to transform the Soviet regime by relentless military, economic, political, and moral pressure. This strategy succeeded brilliantly, especially during the final phase of the Cold War under Ronald Reagan.

Stable liberal democratic regimes do not fight one another.

So I am a vigorous supporter of Senator John McCain because I think we can and must win in Iraq.

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

Still more from Robert G. Kaufman:

In the second phase, from the fall of Bagdad until the surge of June 2007, the Bush Administration made many mistakes. In the third phase, the Bush administration has demonstrated vision and resiliency.
We are in hailing distance of creating an open and democratic Iraq, decent to its citizens and neighbors. The American military has learned successfully to fight and win a difficult counterinsurgency war in less than 5 years, something we failed to achieve in 20 in Vietnam.

As for the cost of the war, I too mourn the life of every brave American who lost their lives. War is inherently tragic, as Thucydides and thoughful commentators on war have underscored through the ages. Nevertheless, critics evaluate the cost in a distorted way. One, those who tally up the blood and treasure expended neglect calculating what leaving Saddam in power would have cost in the context of 9/11. Two, those who pillory the President evaluate him by standards even our most successful commander's in chief could not meet. We have lost 4200 brave Americans, fewer than the cost of pacifying the Philipines after the Spanish-American war of 1898.Compare the cost and mistakes of the Bush Administration to Lincoln's in the Civil War, FDR in World War Two, and Truman in the Korean War.

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

From Robert G. Kaufman, continued:

There are nevertheless concrete historical cases where using force sooner saves much blood toil tears and sweat later, among them: several watershed where the democracies unwisely appeased Nazi Germany, most notably the Rhineland crisis of 1936 when France alone and Great Britain and France together could have stopped Hitler without the cost or risk of a major European War; Churchill's decision to launch a preemptive attack on the Vichy French Fleet harbored in Oran in July 1940; the Israeli attack on the Osirik Reactor in 1981; the Israeli attack on the Syrian Nuclear facility in the fall of 2007. Add to that list President Kennedy's determination to use force to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba --- even without a direct Soviet attack against us --- had not Moscow removed them under U.S. pressure. The dangerous convergence of radicalism and the spread of wmd renders strategies of deterrence and containment that worked against a different type of adversary during the Cold War too dangerous against those who calculate risk with reckless abandon, such as Saddam.

We have to respecfully disagree as well about the equities and outcome of the War in Iraq, and the cost of the conflict measured by historical standards. This war has gone through three phases. In the first, we defeated Saddam's main army and liberated Iraq from Baath tyranny with remarkable speed and with minimum casualties, given the magnitude of the endeavor.

[Steve Kettmann - Huffpost Blogger]

Robert G. Kaufman, whose book I cited in the post, follows up with an eloquently expressed alternate perspective. He doesn't get into the debate about the term "Bush Doctrine," but rather does what he does in his book, called 'In Defense of the Bush Doctrine." It's well worth a close read:

Dear Steve,

I read your post, and respectfully disagree with your assessment of President Bush's foreign policy in general, and the war in particular. My book makes that clear.

One of the many reasons I insisted on the publisher including the entire Bush Doctrine as an appendix (Here Charles Gibson is right in citing the September 2002 address as the definitive statement) is my hunch that the ratio of those who actually read the Bush Doctrine to those who commented on it was 1:1000.

What is novel about the Bush Doctrine ---- the need sometimes to include preemption in the repetoire of options --- is morally defensible and geopolitically imperative. Note that the Bush Doctrine does not make the preemptive or preventive use of force the norm of American foreign policy. It is indeed the exception, as the Doctrine states it.

[jno510]

Another great post Steve! I had hoped McCain was undermining his own message of experience by bringing a virtual unknown with the thinnest of resumes on board his team, but according to polls, Americans really do have short attention spans and seem concerned only with lipstick instead of doctrines. As Wall Street collapses while we get our news from Hollywood Access, I believe we're witnessing the final decline of the American civilization.

[napapjd]

"Surge to Nowhere" -- a classic and brilliant line....

Here's what I'm wondering, Steve: Are conservatives really sure Sarah Palin is what they want? Do they know her? Or do they believe, yeah, she's clueless about world affairs, but she's certain to find sanctuary aboard the neocon express, so everything will be OK? Because this morning, for instance, Kristol writes ostensibly a Palin column without even pretending to make an argument that Americans can and should be confident in her well-developed and demonstrated world view and leadership temperment. It's just more cackling with glee that the media and liberals aren't impressed by her. More and more, that seems to be all the right is looking for...

[mommadona]

I want to know what Bush's WORLD VIEW is...THAT was something Palin seemed to think she knew something about.

I'd like to hear about that - probably with the strains of "Onward Christian Soldier" wafting up as she pontificates.

[VillagesNancy]

As always, I find Steve's comments very interesting. He seems to put things back on the right path. On TV programs Sarah Palin is the topic ad nauseum. What is relevant about that?? We have a Presidential race here. John Mc Cain has not suggested any ways he would change the messes that President Bush has made. He just says change but what is that?? Obama suggests specific things.

President Bush's Presidency has been a nightmare from the beginning. How could the invasion of Iraq possibly have removed the threat of terrorism??? Osama bin Laden is still at large and the situation in Afghanistan (not to now mention Pakistan) just becomes worse. Even if we leave Iraq does that mean the whole mideast situation will be without problems?? I feel we created MORE problems that we solved by going into Iraq in the first place.

Now, we have tne entire economy falling apart. It seems to me that a good deal of this can be tied to the big oil interests and people getting rich from the war and too bad about the middle and lower classes.

Keep up the steady postings, Steve.