2007 Articles Index
America Can Be Better
My Own Monday-Morning Quarterbacking: Why did Bush send staff to enlist other nations before the war, instead of going himself?
On the subject of lining up forces, here is a criticism of Bush that goes back to the period before the invasion of Iraq: Why did our president not get on his airplane and fly around the world to talk to the head of any nation the support of which he wanted to enlist? In his preparations he never included this absolutely critical component, and I knew back then that he was costing us the good even of then-sympathetic nations.
It seemed to me then, and has surely been borne out, that it was a huge gaffe that he sent others on this errand, when he should have used the airplane we pay for to go look each national head in the eye and explain what he though the magnitude of the problem to be, and why goin to Iraq was a good way to tackle it. He should have taken his technical people with him to present the details when necessary, and he should have had a glass of wine or vodka or ouzo or a cup of coffee or whatever it took, and personally asked the head of each nation for support.
It could have taken a few months. So what? Whether intentional or not, whether he understood it or not, the fact of sending others to do his job sent a signal to world leaders along this line: I don't have time to come ask you myself to send your nation to war, so please talk with my assistant and let me know whether you'll be sending money or troops or both. I contend that it was seen, rightly or wrongly, as an arrogant snub of world leaders everywhere. We can debate the relative importance of this one or that one, and line up the order of visits according to that logic, but whatever our opinions along that line, each and every head of a nation must surely have expected, and with good reason, to be treated as the head of a nation.
In the absolute worst case, not one of them would have seen it Bush's way, and every single one would have said, "Sorry. You'll have to do this one on your own." Okay, fine. He would then have a big decision to make: can we and should we do this on our own? If he could still convince Congress, as he did, that going to war made sense, then so be it. But at least he could say that he made every effort possible to enlist the aid of every civilized nation on earth. That moment is gone and cannot be recovered.
I cannot forgive him for being so unaware that he would belive that he could send others to do a job that absolutely demanded his personal presence at every session. It's only slightly less a sin that he also did not understand that by engaging these other leaders personally he might conceivably have learned something about them or us or the problem itself. If nothing else, he would have signalled his respect for their opinions. I'm sure that he would say that he absolutely respects the opinions of his peers, the leaders of all the great nations of the world, or something like that. The problem is that he did absolutely nothing, when it counted most, to demonstrate that.
