Bush I vs. Bush II

Wilson is far from unique among Bush I appointees willing to damage Bush II. And now even some current Bush appointees have joined forces with Wilson and his Bush I colleagues. There’s the anonymous “senior administration official” who on September 28 in the Washington Post, fingered two “top White House officials” as shopping the status of Wilson’s wife to “at least six” Washington journalists. The venom of this senior official was such that the Washington Post reporter who received the disclosure felt compelled to write, “It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another.”

The next day’s Post brought forth a very long front-page article titled, “Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked by Cheney,” mainly a rehash of the pros and cons of whether a sighting in Prague of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta could be confirmed. What was new in the article were a number of anonymous allegations by “senior and mid-level administration officials” implying the vice president and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, were obsessed with linking Iraq and 9/11. At one point, the Post describes Libby as “over the top,” attributing this opinion to “other officials present” at a meeting called to discuss the draft of a U.N. speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell. Why “other officials,” you might ask? Because “several administration officials” also present believed that Libby, far from acting “over the top,” was merely supplying “the broadest range of options” for inclusion in Powell’s speech.

The elephantine effort that went into producing this journalistic mouse is intimately related to the controversy over the outing of Ambassador Wilson’s wife. The Bush I and Bush II views of the world, always at odds, have reached their inevitable point of maximum conflict, which is their view of regime change in Iraq and its relationship to the rest of global politics. Colin Powell is the constant in the two Bush administrations, opposed to overthrowing Saddam Hussein in both eras. As secretary of defense, Dick Cheney acquiesced in the first decision, then switched to the side of regime change in Bush II. A convert and hero in the Bush II view of Iraq and the world, the vice president is the great betrayer in the Bush I view, which explains the rage so many Bush I adherents feel toward him, as well as the elaborate effort to discredit him and his top aides and allies. From either viewpoint, Bush I or Bush II, Cheney is the pivotal figure.

There are huge stakes in which view of Iraq prevails. Among these is the historical legacy of Bush I no less than of Bush II.

The Bush II view of the world is that 9/11 ignited a world war between the United States and a radical political offshoot of Islamic fundamentalism, often called Islamism. Islamists have already proven their willingness to murder vast numbers of American noncombatants, which makes their connection, or potential connection, with anti-American rogue states a special danger. Deeply anti-American rogue states, including non-Islamist ones like Saddam’s Iraq and North Korea, logically become an important target of American war strategy.

Bush II also has a political strategy, based on its analysis of the enemy. It argues that Islamism thrives on the chronic inability of the Islamic world to separate religion from politics. It therefore believes that, even more than economic growth, the establishment of constitutional democracy in Islamic countries provides a reasonable hope of ending or at least eroding the political base of violent Islamism. Hence the importance of U.S. efforts to foster liberal democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as encourage democratic reforms among friendly Islamic governments ranging from Indonesia to Morocco. This is why the Bush II vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace is firmly linked to post-Arafat democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority.

There are also backward-looking implications of the Bush II view of the world, and of the world war Bush II believes we are in. Who carried out the mass murders of 9/11? The Sunni wing of Islamism, led by Osama bin Laden. What is the main geographic and cultural base of this movement? Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi sect of Islam. What was the main rallying point of this movement? The presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia. When and why were they brought there? In 1990, to protect Saudi Arabia against possible invasion by the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. Why were they still there 10 years after the first Iraq war? Because Bush I decided not to overthrow Saddam at the end of that war. Why have they been withdrawn now, removing a major grievance/rallying point of Islamists and Wahhabis? Because Bush II has overthrown Saddam Hussein, and the threat that necessitated the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia no longer exists.

If the Bush II view of the world is vindicated, in other words, Bush I will no longer be the administration remembered primarily for decisively winning the Persian Gulf War. It will be remembered as the administration that left Saddam Hussein in power, inadvertently leading to a chain of events culminating in 9/11 and a far-flung world war. This is the link between Saddam’s rule and 9/11 that can never be denied or discredited.

There is an alternative Bush I view that is now engaged in a death struggle with Bush II. It has a micro, not a macro, interpretation of what happened on 9/11. It sees Osama and Islamism as limited and aberrational. It mildly supported the invasion of Afghanistan, but would favor no other significant military actions, backing mainly police actions geared toward catching Osama and other al Qaeda figures. It believes many of our problems in the Islamic world relate to our support for Israel. Bush I does not like Yasser Arafat, but believes the United States and Israel have no choice but to try to strike a deal with him.

In the Islamic world, Bush I favors economic development through trade and internal, top-down reforms. While it does not oppose attempts to achieve democratic reforms in Islamic countries, it has little hope that this will be much of a factor in the immediate decades ahead. Bush I retains a generally benign view of the Saudi monarchy. It believes unrest in the kingdom can be alleviated by internal economic reforms and by U.S. support for a revived peace process with Yasser Arafat.

The acts of terrorism and armed resistance in post-invasion Iraq have revived the core Bush I belief that leaving Saddam in power in 1991 was the right thing to do. If a peaceful, democratic outcome in Iraq continues to look doubtful, Bush I will inevitably, as a corollary of its opposition to preemption and regime change, elevate Bush II’s invasion of Iraq into one of the two biggest U.S. problems in the Islamic world, the other being U.S. support for Israel.

This is not meant to imply that Bush I has a vested interest in everything going badly in Iraq. There is one path, even after what it sees as the error of the Bush II invasion and overthrow of Saddam, to a reasonably bright future for Iraq. That is U.N. involvement.

At every stage of the now 13-year-old American debate on Iraq, Bush I has favored United Nations involvement as the centerpiece of U.S. policy toward Iraq. It formed and led a U.N. coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. It refrained from overthrowing him in part because the U.N. resolution it was acting under did not provide for this. When Saddam showed recalcitrance, Bush I helped enact U.N. sanctions.

When Bush I sensed that Bush II was determined to overthrow Saddam, James Baker, Colin Powell, and other key Bush I figures convinced Bush II to do this only after obtaining a new U.N. resolution. Bush II successfully did so, then attempted for nearly six months to persuade the Security Council to enforce its own new and unanimous resolution. When it would not, the United States and Britain went to war.

When violence and unrest in Iraq flared up in the aftermath of the invasion, Powell convinced Bush II to return to the U.N. for help, both military and financial, as well as a new resolution. Despite the limited success, once again, of this latest effort, it is predictable that as long as Bush I elements remain active in Bush II, there will be new attempts to conciliate and involve the U.N. in the future of Iraq, awarding it the lead role if possible.

Partly, this reflects the desire of Bush I to limit American casualties. But the more dominant reason is Bush I’s belief that the attempted democratization of Iraq is an exercise in futility, and that turning things over to the U.N. is the quickest way to terminate such Bush II efforts and dilute blame for the mess that is the likeliest outcome of what they see as Bush II’s misconceived invasion of Iraq.

But if the clock is ticking on Bush II’s efforts to bring democratic reform to Iraq, it is ticking even faster on the Bush I worldview. This is the best explanation for the accelerated urgency of the effort by Bush I loyalists within the current administration to discredit Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the two most powerful advocates other than the president of the Bush II worldview.

Jeffrey Bell is a principal of Capital City Partners, a Washington consulting firm.