Today makes 1,500 days since President George Walker Bush announced Mission Accomplished on board the USS Abraham Lincoln.
On Thursday we surpassed 3,500 American soldiers dead in Iraq, with tens of thousands more wounded.
Let me put it like this: in four years of college I spent about 1,200 hours in class. That’s how long a world-class degree in Political Science took me. Even at just one hour of study a day Mr. Bush should by now have learned a thing or two.
He ought to have learned, for example, that the overall record in occupations heavily favors the natives.
He ought to have learned, too, that counter-insurgency requires something like 1 soldier per 40 people in the entire country. Doubly so, because his man on the ground, General David Petraeus, literally wrote the book on counter-insurgency.
He ought to have learned that there are nuanced but foreseeable consequences for every single foreign policy move. For example, Mr. Bush decided it was a good idea to put part of our anti-Islamofascist Anti-Ballistic Missile “shield” in Poland. The reaction from Russia was obvious: “Hey! You want to act like you don’t trust us, we’ll act like we don’t trust you, which won’t be a big change from the last six years.”
Mr. Bush also ought to have learned, based on his wealth of experience, that the first step in getting out of a hole is to put down the shovel. President Putin’s nose being so understandably out of joint, Bush doubled down on a bad bet, calling the Russians out for backsliding on the democratic reforms of recent decades.
But this is Mr. Bush’s modus operandi, isn’t it? Something doesn’t go his way, and he recommits to it. His support of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez is a fine example of process. When it first became clear that something was rotten in the DOJ, Bush threw down and declared his undying love and support of A.G. Gonzo.
This is the same as Mr. Bush’s approach to the occupation of Iraq: If we aren’t “getting the job done” it must be because we don’t have enough troops. Therefore, more troops. In September, I anticipate that General Patraeus will return and describe Iraq as “I need another 30,000 combat troops and another six months.” Or maybe he’ll retire or be promoted, and Bush will find another otherwise honorable officer to haul his water.
This, in itself, is a microcosm for how Mr. Bush deals with any kind of adversity. Here’s a little diagram:
Step 1: Profess proper behavior at all levels.
Step 2: Delay.
Step 3: Deny any specific wrongdoing.
Step 4: Delay.
Step 5: If indicted, profess proper behavior at all levels. Else, throw an underling under the bus.
Step 6: Delay.
Step 7: If convicted, have shills demand pardon. Else, GOTO 5.
Step 8: Go to jail.
Note that something is missing. “Resign and preserve some thin shreds of dignity” is nowhere to be found. Also, note that none of this is contingent on any factual guilt or innocence. Whether or not a loyal Bushie actually committed a crime or neglected their Constitutional responsibilities, the response pattern is the same.
The single principle driving these two systems is Mr. Bush’s early adoption of the Run Out the Clock defense. In fact, I put his conversion somewhere in the middle of 2000. It may be that Bush’s coterie of strategists decided early on that an aggressive, asinine full court press was the best way to preserve their agenda and their political control side by side. This behavior may, of course, have begun as an entirely pragmatic exercise.
In any case, Mr. Bush would clearly prefer to pass on to another President the responsibility for resolving the crises in Iraq and Afghanistan and the Sudan and every school and clinic and place of work and newspaper in America.
A man I am proud to call a mentor once said to me that leaders must either accept responsibility for the results of their actions or expect to receive the blame for them. Mr. Bush, in avoiding the former, chooses the latter.
History will be your judge, Mr. President. Your legacy depends entirely on whether you take the responsibility or the blame.