‘Does President Bush understand his own foreign policy?’

August 9, 2006

If we can take another quick break from Election Land, Slate’s Fred Kaplan had a terrific piece questioning whether the president actually understands his own foreign policy.

Monday, the president and Condoleezza Rice held a brief press conference in Crawford about the crisis in the Middle East. Taking the president’s comments at face value, Kaplan said Bush’s remarks “once more the question of whether he believes the things he says — whether he’s really so clueless about the world that his actions so deeply affect.”

Kaplan went point by point, highlighting just how little the president’s responses corresponded to the administration’s policies.

* “Everybody wants the violence to stop” — Wrong. Bush “and Rice explicitly wanted the violence to continue, wanted Israel to pummel Hezbollah, so that when the time was ripe for a settlement, Israel could come to the table with a huge advantage,” Kaplan said.

* “People understand that there needs to be a cessation of hostilities in order for us to address the root causes of the problem” — Not even close. “This contradicted Rice’s mantra of the last two weeks — that there should be no cessation until these root causes are addressed,” Kaplan said.

* “We have been in touch with Syria…. Syria knows what we think…. The problem is that their response hasn’t been very positive” — Misleading. “No, Bush has not sent Colin Powell as an envoy to Syria in recent days (though that’s what he seemed to be saying),” Kaplan explained. “He was referring to a trip that then-Secretary of State Powell took to the Middle East in 2003. And, by the way, Syria’s response wasn’t entirely negative back then.”

* “What Condi and I are working on, is to remind people about the stakes in the Middle East. And those stakes include…helping the Lebanese government firm up its democracy” — As Kaplan responded, “But where’s the work? Where’s the aid, the diplomacy, the whatever-it-takes to firm up Lebanese democracy? Where’s the proof that the president understands what he’s talking about?”

As usual, there was no proof. Bush was speaking without a script — which is often a recipe for nonsense.

Does anybody?

  • Incompetence means you don’t realize you are incapable of achieving the goals set before you. Competent people know sometimes that they can not achieve a task. Incompetent people believe nothing is beyond their own ability because they are so ignorant they don’t know they lack the tools and skills necessary.

    Boy George II imagines he can run a foreign policy because he’s too ignorant of his own limitations to see that he can’t. Condi imagines she can achieve peace in the Middle East how exactly? She’s a Soviet expert. Somehow, I get the impression what she ‘knows’ doesn’t apply.

    But that’s kind of tangential to your question.

    Boy George II is being pounded with questions on when we are going to stop Isreal and the violence, and can’t reply that his policy is simply to give Isreal its head as they charge down the hill into death and destruction. In most ways, his answers are just evasions from his duty as ‘the leader of the free world’ to stop Isreal, because 1) he really isn’t anymore, and 2) he doesn’t want to stop Isreal.

    Unfortunately, the Free World has no alternate ‘Leader’ as long as Tony Blair is Boy George II’s poodle.

  • Lance: it’s Israel, not Isreal. But I agree.

    I think it’s entirely possible that Bush thinks that no matter what Israel does it’s all going to fit within God’s plan to nuke the world (including the Jews) for Jezus.

    What a nightmare

  • I know I’m going to get mashed for this, but truth is my quest.

    First, — and don’t jump too soon: Bush for me is a consumate disaster by all standards — I am again at odds with Lance here. I suspect Bush does know he’s incompetent.

    Second, I find myself sympathetic with the Israeli position in its current context. Looking from a distance, in space and time, the Israeli situation — from the point of view of an Israeli — must feel pretty precarious. Think of it: surrounded on three sides by sworn enemies with guns and rockets pointing at you, and sea on your forth. You in America get a couple of hijacked planes on your shores and you go berserk. But you have no idea what it’s like to have three different armies right on your very borders constantly. I don’t think you can even imagine that. You don’t have your citizens blown up by car bombs almost every week. If you did you’d be singing to a very different tune.

    This is not an expression of sympathy or support, in any way, for the Bush administration’s foreign non-policy, about which I can also understand next to nothing. It is, rather, an attempt to gain a valid, practical perspective on an historically long and virtually intractable situation. Much as I respect and admire the Arab cultures, I also recognise the Muslim religion as highly iconoclastic.

    Jane Lampman in an article on this topic sums up my view accurately:

    While religious rights have been set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, issues of proper and improper proselytism have not been resolved. And neither Islamic states nor evangelical Christians fully accept the international role.

  • This man would not do well in a Chinese restaurant; he’d want something from Column A…and then order from Column B….

  • Uhh, is there anything this man understands? (other than how to clear brush…)

  • Goldilocks,
    Few people out there fail to recognize the precariousness of the Israeli situation, but this has not been a matter of whether or not Israel has a right to defend itself. No one questions that, or if they did, they’d stop being taken seriously. This is a matter of whether Israel is defending itself in an effective manner.

    In the past, America has been a country that has understood the inherent fear that Israelis have for their own survival, and been sympathetic and supportive. It’s been a moderating influence on their aggressiveness as well as being a giant deterrent to anyone who wanted to mess with Israel. Today, it’s an America that sees itself (irrationally) as being just as vulnerable, and believes that moderation is a form of weakness. As a result, we’ve lost the ability to keep a lid on things, and that’s simply essential for keeping Israel safe. The more the fighting continues over there, the less safe it will be for Israel. And the neocons seem very determined to learn that lesson the hard way.

  • “Defending yourself” doesn’t work as an excuse when you are the occupying force.

  • thehim,
    Thanks. That takes us further. In the past, America has been a country that has understood the inherent fear that Israelis have for their own survival, and been sympathetic and supportive. That’s great. It makes sense. In the current mayhem I had lost sight of that. And It’s been a moderating influence on their aggressiveness as well as being a giant deterrent to anyone who wanted to mess with Israel. is also an accurate observation.

    I guess what’s confusing and concerning us now is that, as you suggest, America under its current administration is all topsy-turvy about strategy and method. Their understanding seems very immature, like children let loose in a fireworks store. They’re intoxicated with the power and possibilities but they’ve little idea or experience of what to do with them safely, They squander them in useless destructive escapades and have nothing when it really matters.

    As you say, we’ve lost the ability to keep a lid on things. Though letting the neocons learn their lessons the hard way is a luxury we can no longer afford.

  • PhilW, that strikes me as a pat response not supportable under current facts. Israel unilaterally withdrew — i.e. the PA didn’t have to give up anything — from much of the previously settled land in Gaza. To believe those who argue this is all about occupation (as opposed to the arab states’ refusal to change their policy of the annihilation of Israel), that shuld have brought peace to that part of the Israel-PA border in Gaza. And from that portion of Fatah that Abbas could control, it did. But not from Hamas, who kept firing mortars and rifles across the border and ultimately tunneled through a checkpoint killing and kidnapping Israeli soldiers.

    Even more relevant, what is Israel “occupying” in Lebanon? Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon years ago, and there had been relative calm on that border. Hezbollah was not provoked. They may have tried to help Iran deflect from its issue with the world community over its nuclear program, they may have tried to help Hamas (or simply taken advantage of the fact that the IDF was engaged elsewhere with Hamas), they may have felt the need to do something to stave off the new Lebanese government solidifying and subsequently trying to demilitarize the militia. Unless you seriously believe that a cross-border raid that killed several soldiers, kidnapped two others, and preceded a barrage of katyushas was all about the disputed (and in the grand scheme of things, very small) Shebaa Farms, there is no real argument that Israel is occupying anything that involves members of the government of Lebanon.

    Israel has its faults, but I often think the left sees the middle east through a seriously one-sided looking glass.

  • thehim

    Under GHWB and Clinton, American foreign policy toward Israel was that of peacemaker, somewhat removed, somewhat able to take all sides into account. Under Reagan and GWB, American foreign policy toward Israel has been that of ally, very involved in Israel’s politics, on Israel’s “side”, and apparently unable to see any other side.

  • Zeit, Israel is always throwing around its military weight, from my perspective. Yassir Arafat was always getting blamed for everything — Israel would terrorize his administration. They’ve been occupying terrority for years, and feel free to move into neighboring territories whenever they fell like it. So Hizbollah killing a couple of soldiers provides a reason for destroying an entire country?

    It really is a one-sided situation. Israel has all the military muscle, while the Arabs sacrifice their bodies in a futile effort to stay in the game.

    I don’t agree with the perspective that the Arabs started everything. That perspective is what I would call a “one-sided looking glass”. I am for balance as both sides have long been inappropriately violent and, in Israel’s case, greedy, and the U.S. has shown no balance…

  • “I am again at odds with Lance here. I suspect Bush does know he’s incompetent.” – Goldilocks

    Well, let’s just examine that for a moment.

    If Boy George II knows that he is not fit to lead as President of the United States, does he:

    1) Engage the best advice from the best experts available? (No)
    2) Respect and obtain a diversity of opinion on every issue? (No, bubble boy policy)
    3) Treat those of greater educational achievement with deference? (No, see many of CB’s citations)
    4) Reconsider his positions and policies in light of their glaring failures? (No, stem cells and Iraq, please)

    In short, does Boy George II show that not only does he know he is nothing more than a C student in a post-graduate world but that being a C student means he actually has to accept there are people better able to do the job he’s co-opted? I’ve got to say no, so I think my point stands Goldilocks.

    In 2000 Boy George II talked about a humble foreign policy. This kinds of ignores the fact that those of talent and achievement need to practice humility. Humility is not a virtue for the incompetent Bushites because, frankly, they have nothing to be humble about. The correct response to repeated failure is shame, not humility.

    On said note: “Lance: it’s Israel, not Isreal.’ – racerx

    Opps!

    Racerx: It’s Jesus, not Jezus 😉

    “…the Arabs sacrifice their bodies in a futile effort to stay in the game.” – Detroit Dan

    Well, close. The Arabs sacrifice the children of their front line countries (Palestine, Lebanon) to defend their ‘Face’.

    Frankly, I’m pretty sick of the Arabs and their ‘Face’, their f**king ‘Honor’. They mutilate their daughters (female circumcision) when they are not honor-killing them. They throw their sons away as suicide bombers. They whine that they can’t democratize while Israel exists. Somehow, they are stuck in the twelth century and they won’t come out because we are being so ‘mean’ to them. Well too bad. It’s time to grow up and stop blaming everybody except yourselves for your problems.

  • Q: How do you knw when you are nearing election time?

    A: Terror alerts!

    And here we go people, the Bu$h admin, gearing up for the mid term elections in which the GOP is seriously in danger of losing it’s stranglehold on power, has issued it’s first terror alert; a red one this time. I wonder how many we will see before November. It is rather sad actually; the fact that these people have such a pitiful record they have to resort to using fear as a bludgeon against our own citizens. Even sadder, there are people dim witted enough to be fooled.

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