Way back in February, while the United Nations was still debating the appropriate course of action in Iraq, the Bush administration was making it clear to our allies that this was our show and we weren’t particularly interested in anyone else’s opinion.
A senior diplomat from a country on the Security Council quoted a U.S. official telling him that his country’s vote on the war was irrelevant. “You are not going to decide whether there is war in Iraq or not,” the diplomat quoted the U.S. official as saying. “That decision is ours, and we have already made it. It is already final. The only question now is whether the council will go along with it or not.”
That kind of diplomacy — and I use the word loosely — didn’t succeed at the U.N. It frayed relationships and created tensions between the U.S. and countries that have been our allies for generations.
Oddly enough, the same kind of tactful negotiations haven’t been working very well in Washington either.
A terrific column by the Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne explains today that when it comes to Iraq, Bush is “determined to do it his way — and only his way.”
Dionne relayed an anecdote about Sen. Mary Landrieu’s (D-La.) brief meeting with Bush about the administration’s demand for $87 billion for Iraq. Landrieu explained that Bush had little interest in negotiations, or even explanations.
“He said, ‘I’m here to tell you this is what we have to do and this is how we have to do it,'” Landrieu quoted the president as saying. When Landrieu raised a question, “He looked at me and said, ‘It’s not negotiable, and I don’t want to debate it.'”
Keep in mind, Landrieu is not a far-left liberal. She’s a very moderate Dem who supported the Iraq war resolution and even backed Bush on his $2 trillion tax cut plan in 2001. Landrieu was probably inclined to support Bush on the $87 billion, but Bush seemed more interested in laying down the law than asking for her cooperation.
Dionne explained, “[I]n an age of no negotiations and no debate, foreign policy is now a take-it-or-leave-it affair. It’s no way to build support for a difficult undertaking. The president is asking everyone else to do hard things. How long does he expect people to do them just because he says so?”
Dionne noted Bush’s tactics and said, “The imperial presidency is back.” Scary, but true.