War of Necessity, War of Choice by Richard N. Haass

Author:Richard N. Haass
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

6. THE 9/11 PRESIDENCY

GEORGE W. BUSH, elected the forty-third president of the United States, could not claim a mandate. He did not run for the office promising fundamental policy shifts, something that would have likely proven difficult given that the federal budget was in the black, the country relatively prosperous, and the world largely at peace. Rather, he ran on character and a promise of change, themes that resonated with many Americans given the scandals and controversies that reverberated throughout eight years of two Clinton administrations. Still, Bush lost the popular vote, and won the electoral vote only after a contested recount in Florida. From the outset, however, Bush governed as if he had won a landslide. He and those closest to him understood that power is to be used, not hoarded, and that successful presidents generate power by using it.

Iraq, more than any other issue, reflected this central reality of the Bush presidency. Bush did not have any mandate to go to war against Iraq. The decision to attack Iraq was not part of the Republican platform or a central part of his stump speech. Iraq was not mentioned in his first inaugural delivered in January 2001. Nor was it a necessary response to 9/11 in the same sense that attacking Afghanistan and removing the Taliban from power was. Despite the suspicions and assertions of some officials, Iraq’s government had no role in the attacks and no history of supporting either al-Qaida or the Taliban. No, it was a choice apparently made in the wake of 9/11, one that Bush believed would enhance his presidency and change the course of history in the critical region of the Middle East. Bush miscalculated, in that the war, rather than increasing American power, consumed it, in the process detracting from both his presidency and from American influence around the globe.

I do not recall ever running into George W. Bush during the four years I worked for his father. My first interaction was arranged by Chase Untermeyer, a friend from Texas whom I had gotten to know when we both worked in the Bush 41 White House. Chase urged me to make a visit to Austin and meet with the governor, which I did. We talked for maybe two hours at the residence. We were joined by someone I hadn’t heard of before, Karl Rove. The governor told me he was thinking hard about running for president and that if he ran he was confident he would win. We spent the time talking about foreign policy. He mostly asked questions and listened. Iraq only came up when I raised it, and then only for a moment, as my point was it posed no big problem and should not garner more attention than it merited—and certainly not nearly as much attention as he was likely to hear from others.

I remember coming away from that meeting thinking that he was as good a retail politician as I’d ever met. I left behind a copy of

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