For quite a while, when the president was asked whether he’d made any mistakes in office, Bush would struggle to come up with something. More recently, he came up with a stock answer: Bush thought it was a mistake to use warmongering rhetoric such as “bring ’em on.”<\/p>\n
This week, in the midst of a European trip, the president elaborated<\/a> on this.<\/p>\n President Bush has admitted to The Times that his gun-slinging rhetoric made the world believe that he was a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq. He said that his aim now was to leave his successor a legacy of international diplomacy for tackling Iran.<\/p>\n In an exclusive interview, he expressed regret at the bitter divisions over the war and said that he was troubled about how his country had been misunderstood. “I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”<\/p>\n Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”. […]<\/p>\n He also offered words of encouragement for another ally, Gordon Brown, whom he will meet on Sunday…. But he delivered a thinly veiled warning to Mr Obama that his promises to renegotiate or block international trade deals were already causing alarm in Europe and beyond.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is interesting on a few levels. First, it’s kind hilarious that Bush is troubled by the notion that he’s not perceived as a “man of peace.” He, you know, launched a preemptive attack against a country that wasn’t a threat and then refused to leave. Bush is considered a “guy really anxious for war” in Iraq because he really was<\/a> a guy really anxious for war in Iraq.<\/p>\n Second, it’s really<\/i> hilarious to hear Bush suggest that leaders in “Europe and beyond” are worried about an Obama presidency. Trust me, they’re far more worried about Bush.<\/p>\n