The Foreign Service Journal, February 2007

ensuring he has accomplishments that historians will cite when defining his time in office. In the past, presi- dents have often tried to turn foreign policy initiatives into a legacy that will endure and reflect well on them. Jimmy Carter’s successful Middle East peace accord was his most sig- nificant achievement. Bill Clinton’s attempt to reach another Middle East peace deal fell short in his final days, when Yasser Arafat refused to go along. Because of that, Clinton’s involvement with Monica (no last name required) may be the part of his presidency that lingers the longest. Bush won’t be remembered for his domestic affairs, however. His domestic record — tax cuts for the rich, “a heck of a job” responding to Hurricane Katrina and a failed attempt to turn Social Security over to the financial services industry to be looted — will not add any heft when history’s scales weigh his greatness. So the question is whether foreign affairs can still enable Bush to improve his standing among the leaders of our country. Unfortunately, any attempt by Bush to reach some major foreign policy milestones in his remaining two years will fail. It is already clear that foreign policy will be cited most frequently as the debate about his presidency increasingly centers on whether he was the most inept president ever or merely one of the worst. It won’t be just because his negotiating partners are as incapable of cutting a deal as Arafat proved to be. Ironically, the decision that ensured he would have a sec- ond term will also prevent history from reaching a favor- able verdict on his eight years in office. Bush cemented his re-election by invading Iraq. He didn’t attack a country without any weapons of mass destruction, links to 9/11 or ties to al- Qaida simply because he got it all wrong. Access to oil and the chance to show up his father were just going to be bonus points. The Iraq Quagmire When the venture began to falter, democracy became the default ration- ale for the invasion even though this administration places no more em- phasis on democracy than its prede- cessors did. Despite the noble senti- ments expressed in his speeches, democracy matters only when no other interest in a country is important. It was the need for a new sound bite that prompted the new lan- guage, and the media breathlessly reported the news with its usual lack of historical perspective as if it were some- how a significant change. But democracy is not going to take root in Iraq any time soon, and instability, not free- dom, is being exported to the rest of the region. Despite the chaos created and the unending costs, the invasion did meet its primary purpose. It gave Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, a theme for the re-election campaign. But in the process of convincing the Ameri- can people that military action against Saddam Hussein was essential, the administration drank its own Kool-Aid. It sold itself on the idea that few troops would be needed and that they would be greeted as liberators. The only plan necessary was one for turning the country over to the Pentagon’s favorite Iraqi exiles. The failure of that plan and the breathtaking incompetence and corruption of the American occupation has left Iraq where it is today. Reality eventually intruded, however, even for those for whom faith counts more than fact. But before it did, Bush wrapped himself in the flag of a wartime leader and thousands of patriotic Americans voted for his re-election without ever asking why. Mission accomplished. If getting out of Iraq had been as quick and easy as getting in, few would have cared that the case for war, made so eloquently by Colin Powell, was a fraud. Most Americans, Rove calculated, subscribe to the Vince Lombardi theory of international relations: victory means far more than how the game is played. Victory has proven elusive, and now the argument is that defeat would be a “calamity” that would haunt us for decades to come. Our troops can’t leave any time soon, supposedly F O C U S 30 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 7 Dennis Jett, an FSO from 1972 to 2000, was ambassador to Mozambique and Peru and DCM in Malawi and Liberia. He also served in Argentina and Israel, and at State and the National Security Council. Following his retirement from the Service, he assumed his current posi- tion as dean of the International Center at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He is the author of Why Peacekeeping Fails (Palgrave, 2001), and has published over 70 opinion pieces in major newspapers. Ironically, the decision that gained Bush a second term — invading Iraq — will also deny him a favorable verdict on his presidency. Continued from page 28