The Foreboding Shadow Cast By President Bush

I'm going to be particularly busy today and don't anticipate spending too much time perusing the news.  That's alright, though, because I think we all know that most of the news coverage today will be about the well-deserved demise of Saddam Hussein.  With that, I want to make sure that any readers who haven't read Dean Barnett's excellent post on the execution of Saddam do so.  Dean had me nodding my head in agreement with his depiction of how world leaders -- particularly the tin-horn dictator species -- perceive President Bush.  Despite his critics, President Bush will be viewed by history as the man who overthrew two totalitarian regimes, brought the Libyan dictator to heel, decimated much of the Al Qaeda leadership and established the principle that a terrorist act committed against the United States will be met with a swift and disproportionate response. 

 

The naysayers may try and blame President Bush for not (as of yet) preventing Iran and North Korea from moving closer to developing nuclear weapons, but their complaints ring hollow.  It is completely unreasonable to expect any President to "run the table" in addressing the problems of their time.  Eight years just isn't enough time and political capital drains quickly.  Even so, the irony is that the very people who would try and portray the President as "failing" thus far to route the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea would be the first to jump up and down screaming if the President pursued a military option against either nation.  We know this because of their high-pitched shrill screams when President Bush was about to invade Iraq to disarm Hussein.  At the time we didn't have the benefit of hindsight on WMD.  Almost every leader in the civilized world believed he had them.  The United Nations, the CIA, the British, French, Germans, Russians, Bill Clinton, John Kerry and even some of Saddam's own generals who equipped Iraqi troops with gas masks in anticipation that Saddam would give the order to use chemical weapons.  The Bush haters will always find a channel to dispense of their hate -- usually conveyed with unimaginative little stock phrases and slogans. 

 

The difference between President Bush and his critics is that President Bush is historically consequential while his critics resemble vindictive shrews.  The President has pursued major strategic objectives and taken tremendous risks.   There have been setbacks to be sure.  Setbacks go hand-in-hand with major undertakings.  It's easy to set a safe course full of accomplishing small, poll-tested objectives.  It's quite another to sail into uncharted waters and try to change the world in a meaningful way.  In short, President Bush will go down in history as that most noble of leaders -- the liberator.