Edward Luttwak’s last cover story for us, a provocative essay arguing that the middle east was of small and declining strategic significance, proved so irritating to so many that it remains one of the most popular pieces we’ve ever published, to judge by our website traffic. (It’s also being turned into a book. The film rights may still be available.)
Now Luttwak is back with another dose of far-out contrarianism: George W Bush’s presidency, he argues, far from being the foreign-policy catastrophe almost everyone, left and right, takes it to be, has actually been a stunning success. With the admittedly rather glaring exception of Iraq, Bush’s aggressive foreign policy has successfully rolled back the global tide of jihadism and brought recalcitrant governments in the Muslim world on side. “You’re either with us or against us”—the Bushism most commonly invoked to stand for what is supposed to be the president’s dunderheaded black-and-white view of the world was and remains, says Luttwak, exactly the right slogan and the right attitude.
Please vent your spleen below.
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the uncomfortable truth is that the current crop of usa foreign policy practitioners are hopelesly inept.they go off on crusades eg to democratise the me.
during the south african transition from the nats to democracy we were lucky that the the british were to quote a friend who lives in a township everywhere.otherwise the americans would have been here and we might have had civil war!
I found the article to be interesting in a number of ways.
First, one should point out what it is not. It is not an essay using any consistent strategic theory method. This is surprising considering that Luttwak is a strategic theorist, the author of a basic textbook on strategic theory, namely “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace”. He is also a Clausewitzian strategic theorist in that he pretty much follows Clausewitz’s approach in his actual analysis, as apart from his polemics.
So what is this essay? How would one categorize it? It is imo obviously a polemic, and a rather bias and ahistorical one at that. This can be proved rather quickly by comparing what Luttwak ’s approach would have been had he adopted a strategic theory approach.
First in comparing the Korean War and the current war in Iraq, the dissimilarities would be difficult to miss. In Korea, Truman was on the defensive, hoping to prop up a South Korean state which had been attacked by North Korea. The political purpose of the war was clearly limited (which of course is why MacArthur was relieved). For the most part, the US followed a strategy of attrition which is why the losses were so high relatively. In the end Truman achieved his limited goal of the survival of a South Korean state and thwarting Communist aggression.
Bush’s war in Iraq is the opposite in almost every way. Bush was the aggressor, the political purpose was essentially unlimited (the overthrow of the Saddam government, radical makeover of the Iraqi state and political identity, the domination of the Iraqi economy and natural resources, the establishment of permanent military bases to project US military power throughout the region) and the resources necessary to achieve these radical goals were never committed. Bush tried to do it all on the cheap and has failed miserably. The exact opposite of Truman, Bush failed to understand the basic strategic theory formula of political purpose/military aim/applied means or simply that achievement of the military aim (in some instances victory) provides the means to the strategic end (the return to peace with the political purpose achieved). The nature of the political purpose determining the means and the political relations the nature of the specific war in question.
Of course Luttwak sidesteps this by attempting to separate Bush’s Iraq war from the larger “war on terror”, Iraq is describes simply as a “sideshow”. He does this by introducing a counterfactual version of Bush as implementing effective political pressure on various Muslim states and individuals to desist in their jihadist loving ways, which is my second point. The actual Bush only went through the motions in this regard, with the focus (even prior to 9/11 as we now know) being a war of conquest of Iraq with perhaps a second war against Iran. Both Iraq and Iran being enemies of the “Islamic militancy” as Luttwak describes it. So in Luttwak’s counterfactual version the sideshow becomes the focus point and the focus point becomes the sideshow. The effort he puts in this bit of hocus pocus reaches its own climax with his description of Pakistan’s “overnight transformation of the very core of a country’s policy”, that is from supporter of jihad to unquestioning Bush vassal. Let’s admit on the contrary that Pakistan’s supposed “transformation” is more the nature of a superficial veneer and had much to do with cash payments and cynical opportunism, not to mention US disinterest. Again the focus was on Iraq, not any jihadist threat, the jihadist threat used as the excuse and cover for the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Third, the most telling example of his lack of any strategic theory methodology in this polemic is his total reluctance to apply his own concept of “paradoxical logic” to his argument. Instead he claims to see into the distant future and that the future will look exactly as the present with no big surprises at all. This massive conflict will unfold pretty much “administratively” with the mighty American juggernaut dictating operational responses to all of its various enemies over a period of decades. The victors (including all the tyrants we support) will write the history and declare Bush a great visionary. War without friction or chance, without unintended consequences and self-defeating policies, that is without Luttwak’s own concept of “paradoxical logic”. From a strategic theory perspective in other words – a childrens’ fable.
My last point in describing this as a rather obvious polemic, is the language Luttwak uses: As in “Hard-working” to describe the US and Europe (notice how Europe is invited to join in on the fruits of Bush’s great success) and the “parasitic oil-bubble countries” of Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela and others. America he assures us is simply too big to fail and gets to choose between “confronting its national problems” or simply “outgrow them”, whereas normal states like China (”will the Communist party avoid collapse”) and India (”degenerating state and local governments strangle the country’s economic progress) must deal with reality. . .In all the language is chosen to appeal to a certain right-wing mindset, those circa 19% who are still supporting George W. Bush no matter what.
Which indicates what we have with this essay: A polemic by a strategic theorist who avoids any use of strategic theory at all since that would be counter to his argument; a bias piece crafted to appeal to a very specific worldview, which is the essence of what has put US policy in the strategic deadend it finds itself in today.
Two things: there is Prospect’s attempt at contrarianism, and the awful article by Luttwak itself.
Maybe Prospect’s cunning point is that if this is the best that can be done to attempt a counter-balance, then the case against Bush is made more complete. But taken at face value, this attempt to add a thoughtful rebuttal to current herd opinion on how lousy a President Bush has been falls way, way short. Indeed, the real contrarian position may be in the opposite direction.
First – that article – Luttwak’s piece is a meagre counter-weight to the growing body of evidence that the Bush administration may be the worst the US has suffered in its history. In trying to overturn this position – entirely, not just elements of it – in one go, Luttwak fails comprehensively. But why be surprised? Even heavyweight contrarians such as Christopher Hitchens only attempt to dispel conventional thinking on select parts of Bush’s actions. The Iraq invasion is a good thing, on balance, in his view, but he quickly side-steps the Bush administration torture culture, its instant international isolationism and is happy to weigh in on the standard position on the lamentable chaos post invasion.
But not Luttwak. All this is, in his view, global myopia about how there was no alternative, and Bush chose right, straight down the line. Let 20 or 30 years intervene, and we will see how the only policy was might and confidence. “The post-victory shambles in Iraq is a side-show in comparison†he says. Note the phrase – Post-victory – not post-war or post-invasion – Luttwak has already subjectively written Iraq’s history even as the present “victory” still unfolds daily.
Basically, the argument is that viewed from 2030 all the current anguish will be forgotten, and Bush’s stand against the Taliban and Saddam worth absolutely all that follows. Period.
Well, we’ll see. Afghanistan is headed back toward whence it came, Al Qaeda continues on, Iraq and Iran remain major trouble-spots and US standing in international eyes is diminished by Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and so on. All this is more or less objectively defendable. All this on Bush’s watch. Whatever happens in the long-run is now not down to him, as too many major choices have to be made between then and now, and too many actors are still out there with options.
And the Truman analogue is a lazy and inappropriate one, as even Luttwak acknowledges – a conventional war against a defined State rather than an endless campaign against stateless “terrorâ€.
Really, a better contrarian position, and more defensible by fact rather than reflexive support, is that the Bush Presidency will be seen to be much worse than we now think: what he has set in motion may be far more catastrophic than we currently assume – discuss.
Yeah, I think the noble notion of evenhandedness has done us a great disservice regarding this administration. There is a longstanding habit amongst thinking people to refrain from screed – to try to weigh both sides of an issue and to consider objectively the other side of the argument. But the effect of this has, in my opinion, to give legitimacy to that which is implicitly illegitimate. I mean, sure, it’s easy to say that time will tell. But it seems as though an awful lot of text is devoted to explaining how that the thing with feathers and webbed feet, quacking on the water, that looks exactly like a duck, might actually be a bear, or an elephant, or a good administration.
Yesterday, it was uplifting to hear President Bush speak out
against Chinese abuse of human rights in Tibet
However , the significant increase in cheap heroin available
on UK streets ( and subsequent knock-on effects for British
society etc ) as a direct result of the American administration ,
in particular Donald Rumsfeld’s alleged appeasement of the
war lords in Afghanistan, cannot be judged by history as anything less than a slow-release, long term victory for bin Ladeneers…
Or will it ? At source, pomegranates yield a higher return than opium, and according to this BBC report : ” A reformed drug-user from Swindon has persuaded poppy farmers in Afghanistan to grow pomegranates rather than poppies ”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7545107.stm
Mr. Luttwak’s essay is a piece to teach from; to teach how to present an indefensible case. As I recall them, the facts post 9/11 that he seeks to overcome or sideline are:
- the event caused an immense surge of world-wide sympathy and support for the USA.
- the astoudingly able initial campiagn against the Taliban when they refused to yield up Osama Bin Laden was aided by Iran ( a natural eneemy of the viciously anti-Shia teaching of Sumnni Muslim extremism).
- Iran was also the long-standing enemy of Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-based, secularist regime; and also a declared ideological opponent of communism.
- Saddam Hussein was opposed to the Saudi regime and to the Wahabi extreme of Islam – the extreme that gave birth to Al Queda – that the Saudis fostered. He had explored possible contacts with Ai Queda on the ground that they had common enemies. Those contacts had floundered in face of the evident fact that Saddam and Bin Laden were rivals for the leadership of the Arab world. Saddam’s regime was ‘Socialist’ but had firmly repressed Iraqi communism.
- Instead of treating Iran and Saddam as allies for the time being against Al Queda, Gerge W chose to pile them together with Al Queda and North Korea an an Axis of Evil which he would confront. This had three immediate consequences:
1. It excluded Iran and Iraq from the world-wide coalition against Al Queda.
2. Its evident unreality began the erosion of world-wide support for the USA
3. It marked the beginning of the diversion of US effort from the pursuit of Al Queda and their Taliban hosts (neither Bin Laden nor his closest advisers nor the Mula who leads the Taiban have yet been brought to book) to what Littwak rightly terms “sideshow”s.
- Intervention in Iraq then became the top priority. What US objective was being pursed through that intervention is still not clear. The intervention was seen as so urgent that there was no time to either mount a convincing case for it or to wait until the other powers became so fed up with Saddam that they collectively acquiesed (as the UN Security Council was close to doing).
- The initial intervention in Iraq was almost as precisely successful as the British intervention there in 1942.
- In spite of the urgency with which the intervention had been mounted, and in spite of plentiful intelligence saying in various forms “these people will give the Americans 6 months and then they will start shooting”, the Bush administration did nothing with its initial success in Iraq until a lot of Iraquis started shooting; and Al Queda had established itself amongst them.
- The fiasco of solemn and vehement assertion of the existance of, followed by the search for, non-existant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has damaged US Government credibility for the foreseeable future. (At the time of the intervention, it seemed to me from published information that the odds were roughly 6 to 4 against the existance of any WMD in Iraq. I over-estimated the risk; but nowhere nearly so badly as the Bush Administration).
- Iraq continues to divert effort from the main task of pursuing Al Queda. This still centres in and on the borders of Afghanistan. The Taliban have reformed and regained a great deal of ground under the benign shelter of the Bush administration’s giving priority to Iraq and being ineffective there for so long.
- Littwak rightly records that Muslim governments and societies now have much less tolerance for Al Queda and similar extremists. The same is true of the CIA and other Western intelligence bodies. Before the fall of communism, these extremists were seen as allies of a sort. After 9/11, everyone began to see them as a threat. It is not unusual for any of us to react against organisations which we see as a threat. US policy was not very relevant.
- the fact that the USA under George W has looked militarily over stretched with Iraq and Afghanistan on its hands has undobtedly made the USA less militarily credible elsewhere.
- the George W administration continues to preach the message of human rights. The various misadventures in Iraqui jails, in other aspects of the occupation, in covert renditions, in Guatanamo Bay, and in “collateral damage” to the innocent have weakened that message continually.
For those of us who remember the Truman Administration and its ending, Luttwak’s attempted paralell and contrast with it does not convince. Truman’s priorities in foreign policy became clearer and clearer with time, not more muddled. At the end of his administration, the US was militarily stretched, but he had more than begun building up the additional force needed to meet that challenge. He had (through adroit use of Stalin’s error) secured UN support in Korea. Stalin and Mao understood that ground offensives would not be walk-overs. This we saw at the time. Truman was tired; a change of adninistration was overdue. He was not a victor in foreign affairs, but I never saw him as a failure. (Some journalists and commentators did; but some are always attacking the old to curry favour with the new). The only real parallel is there: it is time for George W to go as it was time for Harry Truman to go. However, Harry went with his laurels. George W. goes with the sadness of having brought about his own failure.
The premises of this article are
1) There was a huge Islamic threat before 9/11
2) That American Foreign policy on its own made this go away
3) That this was all down to Bush’s leadership
Sooo…
1) How many people (apart from Russians – that was US-funded) had been killed by Islamists before 9/11 and before the two illegal invasions? How does this compare with the IRA, or Basque separatism, or the Hutus and the Tutsi’s?
Or to take the rogue state line, which is the state in the middle East currently equipped with illegal nuclear weapons? (give you a clue it starts with an I and ends with an srael.)
2) Hmmm, well, when you consider that the US keeps on breaking the nuclear non-proliferation treaties, and keeps on signing deals with proliferating states like India, despite their record for getting into regional conflicts, the case for a de-nuclearising US foreign policy looks shaky. Yes, Bush has managed to bully a few Muslim states, but no, this has not turned the tide around nuclear weapons, and since it has all been based on force, has not changed hearts and minds. So really the approach is more a quick fix that won’t last, than a cure based on a long-term foreign policy vision.
3) I think that Bush had a team around him that did most of his thinking for him. Hence the whole reading stories about Goats for an age after 9/11 happened…
Weak article, not sure why Prospect printed it other than perhaps to provoke people a bit.
Hi,interesting article by a guy who thinks he has discovered the true pulse of a presidency. If Bush’s war on terror has been successful, why then is the Taliban re-arming in Afghanistan? Iraq, far from being a neutralized non-terrorist state, is the haven for suicide bombers and radicalist thinking. Muslims as far as Phillipines and Sudan, find common purpose in the Palestinian cause and anti-American militancy mostly as a direct result of Bush’s foreign policy and his active complicity with the gross violations of human rights in the occupied territories. While the author is expedient to score cheap political points by outlining Zakaria’s intellectual failings, his complete omission of Israel/Palestine and Bush’s pathetic Road Map to Peace render this article inchoate and serving as a rationalization of his lonely support for a failed presidency. His omission of Hamas’ victory in democractic elections smacks of ignorance bordering on stupidity. He is quick to remind us of the dramatic turn in treatment of jihadis from Pakistan to Libya. Yet he ignores that anti-american sentiment is at unprecedented levels in the world today. In Teheran where over a million people marched in solidarity with the victims of 9/11 waving American flags and yes, posters of George Bush, today burn those very flags and posters and effigees . The Bush government in pursuing a middle-century isolationist ‘crusade’ with no semblance of legitimacy has undermined every international charter to which it is a signatory. The Bush government’s dithering on the definition of torture, Guantanamo, its explicit support for the dictatorial Saudi royal family are symptoms of a malaise in foreign policy so deep as to be truly cancerous. It is potshot attacks by pseudo-intellectuals such as yourself that undermine genuine discussion on what merits he may or may not possess.
Further, the criticism of Zakaria’s thesis on America’s educational decline is fallible to say the least. It is evident that either the author did not read Zakaria’s thesis or did so in so fleeting a manner as to ignore the message entirely. It is true, the education system of America is perhaps unrivalled in the world. However, the rapidly declining numbers of US citizens who pursue studies in Science and Engineering is at its lowest ever. The number of high school teachers in Science and Math who had majored in these subjects is less than 30% according to a Pew figure. The increasingly hostile immigration policies of the US govt are driving away the very intellectual talent that has fired American progress for decades. Yet all this seems to have escaped the notice of the writer entirely. A weak thesis and an ever weaker defence of it.
Here is how I would summarize the author’s arguments:
Gee, it sure was lucky that the US had an unsophisticated binary thinker who liked to thwack things in place when 9/11 happened. Surely no other approach could have produced positive results, hard as they might be to discern. Oh, and the author thinks that Zakaria and Friedman get too much press…
Unbelievable. While Harry Truman was at best a mediocre president, whose current reputation is all out of line with his actual achievements, there is simply no comparison between his administration and George Bush’s. Putting aside the fact that Bush and his cronies ginned up a phony war, the rampant across-the-board corruption, the growth of mercenary groups like Blackwater, and the lockstep adherence to the extreme right-wing’s agenda to roll back the 20th Century (the Geneva Conventions, United Nations, NATO, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and on and on) is enough to make him go down as one of the worst presidents the US has ever had, right up there with two other infamous Republicans: Herbert Hoover and William McKinley.
As an historian, Luttwak should know this: What are the 180,000 mercenaries Blackwater has in Iraq going to do when that war ends? They don’t owe allegiance to the US President. Remember Rome: they built an armed force of mercenaries, who then turned against them.
It feels good to be a contrarian, to remove oneself from the mainstream of opinion, and to carve out ones own little niche of thought. A roll of the dice that one will be perceived as prescient instead of a totally off the wall crackpot. The Bush as Great President trope is starting to make the rounds gaining momentum as his own people abandon ship and the public swings against him. If everyone thinks anything then it must be wrong. It has the added benefit of selling books and sparking hits on web pages as outraged people violently react to tripe being presented as bold thought. Nice job. Unless the standard of measure becomes so corrupted as to be meaningless Bush will go down in history as a silly, infantile empty suit appointed to allow a cretin like Cheney carte Blanche with American foreign policy. And let us not forget the shredding of our constitution, the reducing of the US to a terror state that tortures its prisoners, the elevation of the Presidency to a lawless Potentate and many other high crimes and misdemeanors. Too many people, based on a blind support of Israel, accept bad policies with a enemy of my enemy is my friend approach, Like Mr Lieberman. History is written by the victors, and rewritten by the ambitious.
More proof that ideology can trump rationality any day of the week. You see what you believe, friends. Does anyone really believe that opposition to US foreign policy has been disarmed? Ha ha ha. Very funny. Bush’s policies have created a whole army of militants against us. They have more sympathy thanks to our insane foreign policy. Hope you are thanking Mr. Bush when these nuts strike again.
“Jihadism has been largely confined to Iraq and the border zones of Pakistan, where guns are fashion statements and jihad the latest excuse for millennial violence.” Perhaps Mr Luttwak should talk to the British police, who could tell him about the jihadi plots they have foiled since the London bombings, or look at some of the recent research into jihadi cells in Europe that shows not that they have disappeared, but that they have transformed into non-hierarchical online networks, and no less effective for that. At the very least he should dig beneath the surface rather than let his ideology lead him to wishful thinking.
Stupidity is the new genius! Dubya is the greatest American President of the 21st century!
For what it’s worth, I searched the text of Luttwak’s piece for these terms:
— Cheney
— Guantanamo
— Abu Ghraib
and found nothing. An assessment of President Bush that omits these black holes is overlooking the foundation stones upon which his reputation will ultimately rest.
As well-written as this article is, it downplays Bush’s incredible incompetence in prosecuting the war and fails to question his motivations. The privatization of what were once government functions spans wartime activities from logistics to actual combat operations. This is not the issue. The issue here is that this article claims Mr. Bush has done these things for loftier reasons than the base and ugly truth of enriching his cronies and future employers. I could make a better case for comparing Bush to Harding than Truman. Truman also did not spring from the Bush family and all that that implies.
Never mind the author’s ridiculous trumpeting of Bush “success” in the so-called war on terror. What about this statement: “…in fact the influence of the US in Europe is increasing with each passing day…” The past week’s events in Georgia sure make this seem like wishful thinking, don’t they?
I used to read a lot of Luttwak. Not so much any more, he seems to have gone a bit off the deep end in an interview with him I read a few weeks back–but I’ll take a gander at this. In the first paragraph there’s a howler however that doesn’t make me feel good about it–in Korea, approx. 37,000 Americans died. It was the Vietnam war that was the 54k dead. A carelessness of this sort doesn’t bode well.
As an actual American, I must say this is a large pile of
raving nonsense. George Bush has done more damage to the true American nation than any other politician in history.
In his craven cultural cowardice and obesience to the idiocy of multiculturalism, he’s depraved enough to be a British politician.
To QuestionAuthority & Worried.
1st the easy stuff re: Worried. Cheney > yeah … and what is your point other than to throw what you think is a ‘red meat’ name out there like this is a DailyKos (a very hateful place wishing a really nice perosn like Tony Snow to rot in hell for being a mouthpiece of the facsist nazis of the W admin) place? Guantanamo > yeah … again what is your point other than ‘red meat’ labels? Go read Feith’s book (I know you cannot taint your pure ‘objective’ mind to read the account of someone who you despise – but to be credible you ought to address in depth his complete articulation. This will be a long back & forth process with the key determinations to be ‘facts’ (e.g., the Venona files declassified nearly 45+ years afterward) that will eventually come out in a less partisan/poisionus atmosphere than the present election year. Abu Ghraib … now there you may have/have a legitimate issue.
For QuestionAuthority:
Go read Weekly Standard (I know, you will extinguish your purity if you read the orignal rag of the neocon bastards) of Feb 8, 2008 Fred Barnes article about how W had to essentially beg the Jts Chfs to develop a surge plan let alone support this & Petreaus – who W had to protect. Feb 8 is well before it was clear the surge was a success which makes it credible. Remember as recently as May a good admiral had to be removed because the analyst who promulgated the Pentagon’s New Map, I think Bennet, was singing the admiral’s praises for ’stopping Bush’ from bombing Iran – somehting like this. Point: that admiral was clearly undermininng his then subordinate Petreaus (apart form his sitting Pres.) still in Iraq as many of the poltically afraid (not of dictator W but obviously the Dem controlled Congress at that point & public opinion – which W had to overcome to get the surge considered and for the surge to be planned & effected).
Money line: you cannot argue that Shinseki was right in planning & what should bave been done in ‘03. Why? Rumsfeld I think was basically right – keep a small footprint otherwise we will be seen as occupiers and Iraqis will not reach accomodation themselves vs rely on us. Cannot argue with that thought process. But to invoke the current quote of the day from H MacMillan former UK PM as to what determines a period of leadershuip more than anything “Events, dear boy, events” …. so too Iraq. T think the viciousness of Iraq Al-Queda and the peril the Iraqis found themselves in — then at that point in time only – justified a surge/counterinsurgency approach. Life is too fuid & dynamic to realistically justify set piece plans, steps or policiies. Reaction to circumstances is the reality of life …. unless a person wants to wed themselves to an ideological mindset that discards addressing facts & circumstances.
Conclusion: call for your Truth Commission or War Crime Trials or Impeaachment …. I just beg you to also include a thorough investigation of Sen Dodd who got a sweetheart loan from Countrywide Chairman Angelo (friends of Angelo remember) and ran an obvious ploy of a Pres. candidate campaign as Chmn of the Senate Finance Committee which oversees all finance & insurance industry legislation & regulation and where he can keep some of those ‘campaign contributions’ (read: personal retirement fund) ….. to me Dodd makes Sen Stevens look like an amateur – Dodd is where the real $ is at. But of course the media cannot investigatge such obcvious conflcits of interests or ‘problems’ because Dodd is not Republican I guess. So Sen Edwards, a likely Attorney Gen’l nominee and former popular Pres candidate (I actually kind of liked Edwards out of all the candidates in ‘04) buys off attention via Houuston trail lawyer buddy such that the Nat’l Enquirer has to report all this – pathetic.
Remember – be prepared to judge & evaluate yourself & your positions as your most effective good faith critic would – then form your beliefs … that is something Luttwak has done here.
A fantasatic essay that is ahead of its time. Those who really study history and can see past their own noses can appreciate the writer’s ability to see the big picture.
It is sad, and only a bit amusing, to see the cognitive dissonance striking all the leftists who are posting comments here. This was inevitable… once history begins to play out and the successes of President Bush become more and more undeniable, the hard left will suffer from these pains.
Bush Derangment Syndrome (BDS) is a very sad thing. Unfortunately, BDS will cause much more pain and suffering for those afflicted with it as history rolls on and correctly judges this President’s success.
This article is flawed on so many levels and reflects the worst sort of revisionism– Unempirical, simplistic, sloppy, and driven by ideological interests rather than facts.
1) Bush’s war in Iraq greatly expanded Islamic Jihadism rather than defeated it. Al Qaeda in Iraq was practically non-existent prior to Bush’s invasion. Then Bush’s created an anarchical situation in Iraq that was a fertile breeding ground for terrorism. Terrorists thrive on anarchy, and Bush greatly enabled it. To credit Bush with reducing terorrism in Iraq is like saying that
2) This article completely diminishes the accomplishments of other countries in fighting terrorism. European countries significantly changed their monitoring and infiltration of terrorist cells on their own initiative and would have done so regardless of Bush. The repression of fundamentalist islamic groups in Arab countries long pre-dates 9/11 and the Bush administration. Egypt, Morroco, Algeria, Syria and others have hardly tolerated organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood. Bush had nothing to do with their policies or recent actions.
3) Luttwak has obviously not read Fareed Zakaria’s book and completely misinterprets his arguments. Zakaria was not arguing that the US is in decline, but rather that other countries are gaining quickly and growing rapidly. The net result is a relative diminishment of American power, as other countries gain in influence, wealth, and power. It is not a declinist, apocalyptic view of America, but rather an optimistic view of other countries future power.
It is amusing reading all the Flying Blowmonkey zealots clinging to Luttwak’s exercise in wishful prescience as some validation of the worst administration in US history. I guess when the measurable performance proves long term critics correct, there is little comfort to be found in the present. I would suggest that they begin the process of acceptance, because the future will not ameliorate what is manifest. There is no meaningful sphere of governance where Bush and Company haven’t distinguished themselves as the very model of incompetence…..
To Earl:
You spout lack of “empiricism’ by Luttwak then you blithely ignore your own criticism in your comments while making idealogically-based criticisms – pot calling kettle black?. What is your ‘empircal’ basis for citing W as expanding jihadism? None – it is only an assertion – one that can be argued infinitely but not settled. Guess in your mind W is to blame for Georgia even though French President came back with a cease fire that Putin (did he not retire from the scene – oh that’s right – some countries & political figures do not play by our rules – how impolite). You argue Bush hardly had anything to do with their counter terrorism policies? Please, too easy to refute >>Pakistan changed their support in a heartbeart once W started to speak out throwing the Taliban over the side, at least in Afghanistan. And how conveniently you dismiss Libya bowing to the Kahn investigation roll-up via a changed Pakistan. Guess too anecdotal for your ‘empirical’ taste. By the way, can you define ‘empirical’ and do you really know what it means versus bandying it about on a blog?
Last you cite Fareed Zakaria like some omnipotent expert. Know this, good old clear thinking Fareed flipped flopped more on Iraq than candidate Sen Kerry (was not his running mate one John Edwards – the person who is conveniently a non-news person now to the main stream media until the ’sleazy’ Nat’l Enquirer had to break the story?). Fareed supported an Iraq effort, then switiched to critical when it got rocky in the media & politically became toxic and only recently – after the race was way over and almost all proclaimed the surge worked – did Fareed magnanimously declare that the one thing W got right was the surge (boy, thank you Fareed, W can leave his presidency knowing you vouched for him on at least one important thing). Please, if this is your expert, give me a copy of MAD magazine (is not that the cover boy for W >> Alfred E Neuman – what me worry) for more stimulating intellectual discourse. By the way, I made a huge bet on emerging markets over the past 5 years due to all my int’l travel and it is obvious that the US can not be as dominant year after year following WWII – there can only be a reversion to the mean – but we do control our destiny & dynamic – way more than most countries that have such historical baggage we do not possess – how many other countries fought a bloody 5 year civil war over slavery and the distinct intellectual political concept of state versus federal rights/power?). But this country has attributes others do not have (even China or India, just maybe Brazil a little & E Europe) – intellectual flexibility and the willingness to learn from mistakes versus national ideological inflexibility. As I diplomatically say to my ‘cannot stand W at any level’ European intellectual friends/bizfolks – the old Churchill sarcasm “You can count on the Americans to do the right thing —- after they have exhausted every other alternative”. I take pride in that actually as it shows that as once frontier country we have to go through faster interations of change, mistake learn improve, etc versus what other countries can manage – one of our critical success factors. I just hear a very samrt Swiss busines man say that no matter what almost the US is ahead of the curve on most fronts by at least 6 months at worst. Iterations & change > exactly what W had to deal with in Iraq. Adsmit W was right just as Fareed did; but humans cannot admit they are infallible – come on you, W and I are more closely related than we want to acknowledge – we are all human … we make mistkes … and we are right sometimes … sometimes due to luck, energy, diligence or talent. W got Iraq right and the the US and world will be alot safer for it no matter what happens to Israel/Iran, poor Georgia versus Russian bullies, etc.
Mr. Luttwak’s screed might be entertaining if it weren’t so tragic. The only credit Mr. Bush & Co. can indiretly lay claim is they have exposed Wahabism, the Taleban and OBL as the fascist ‘theology’ it is.
Mr. Luttwak then proceeds to drown himself in deeper waters:
the absolute rape of our economy. Was it Mr. Cheney who quipped “Reagan proved that deficits dont’ matter”?
The cynicism on display defending our homegrown miscreants
has at best, flushed they and their viral ‘neo-con’s
out of our sewers. I might refer Mr. Luttwak to the latest
RAND study on IRAQ. Thankfully, even RAND, like a broken
clock, is correct twice a day.
This thread is happening on Bill Maher’s forum. Drive traffic to it if you think that Luttwak would make a good panelist on Real Time.
http://boards.hbo.com/topic/Maher-Member-Created/Wants-Edward-Luttwak/1900007680
Just because the guy sounds like a jerk on steroids is no reason to underestimate him. Most of the negative comments on this article reveal more about the respondents’ own prejudices than they do about any possible historical assessment of GWB.
Effective history (as opposed to revisionist twaddle) judges past events in the context of the bigger picture, without prejudice and in light of subsequent developments, and when this happens I believe that George W will be seen as one of the most underestimated presidents in US history – and possibly one of the greatest, certainly Top 10.
To that extent I think the comparison with Truman is apt; both men were/are prepared to take the tough decisions based on their perception of what was/is in the long-term best interests of the US, regardless of how popular or unpopular the decision might be at the time. It’s called moral courage; i.e. good old-fashioned “guts”.
You have got to be kidding. Even fools are right some times, even if it takes 50 years for the “right” to become right. But G. Bush will never be remebered as a great president. Corruption and comparisons to Stalinist Russia will always be a part of the Bush legacy. To focus on what “might” happen in the future and lavish praise on an obesessive egomaniac for being far seeing is stretching the string far beyond its limits. Put your ears on right Mickey Duck. Right now they’re blocking your ability to see the truth.
In the ’20s and ’30s the Western powers were so afeared of the spectre of Bolshevism that they actively encourage ultranationalist regimes as a bulwark against it. When, at last, they realised that, in Nazism, they had allowed an even more terrible monster to be born it was too late and the consequences were War and Holocaust.
Bush, in his blinkered fixation on Islamism, has repeated the error. Anti-democratic, authoritarian and ultranationalist regimes have been actively encouraged by Bush and his allies so long as they were soundly anti-Islamist. We see the first stirrings of what the consequences of this will be in South Ossetia.
Bush is not another Truman. He is another Chamberlain. He is the worst appeaser of political evil in 70 years. And we must count apologists like Luttwak among the new “Guilty Men”.
That’s possibly the most fantastical and laughable pieces of “journalism” I’ve ever read. That a magazine would even consider publishing it really speaks volumes about the magazine that did. A nuclear Iraq? Man, there’s some wild fantasy’s in there.
Leibniz had a term for Luttwak’s conclusion-theodicy.From a realpolitik perspective Bush may be lauded by those who view ‘Islamofascism’ as the new evil (probably the same people who view Communism in the same breath).However the deaths of thousands and the suffering of millions of innocents can never be excused in the eyes of God even if he doesn’t matter any longer.
I’m sure George Bushes actions have divided families and friends.
A week ago I told my step dad and uncle that George Bush is awesome and that I like him and always have.
First thing my uncle said was,”But George Bush is stupid.”
It wasn’t long before I was being call a dictator and a fascist.
I just always remember how much Reagan was maligned by the left and it’s the same with Bush.
Just as a short time of history has rehabilitated Reagan’s image, so the same will happen with George W. Bush.
Why he is so hated is beyond me. I find it incomprehensible.
In the end my step dad and uncle forgive me for what my what they call my naivete.
They just think I’m a silly kid. Me? I just laugh. In the end I’ll be right and they’ll be wrong. That’s all that matters.
Dave, at least you’re old enough to remember Reagan. I can even remember Truman (so I’m probably as old as your step dad and uncle!) but some of these guys don’t seem to be able to go back beyond the Clinton years – and they don’t seem to be able to remember them properly either. Long before GWB, who was it who said that Saddam Hussein had WMD and that sooner or later he’d use them? (or words to that effect)- and the Goracle agreed with him, as did most European intelligence agencies at the time. And who killed Kyoto? – but let’s not go there – that’s a whole ‘nother crock – and a club to beat Dubya with.
Your point about Reagan is very valid – I remember the ‘84 elections when Reagan was portrayed by liberals as a gun toting cowboy – now where have we heard that before? Lincoln too was much under-rated and reviled at times (even by many Republicans) as was Thatcher in the UK. But history deals (or should deal) with objective facts, viewed through the prism of time and in the light of subsequent events, not subjective opinion and emotional perspective. History evaluates results – it’s the ‘walk the walkers’ who get the final nod, not the ‘talk the talkers’ – although those like Lincoln and Reagan who could do both get bonus brownie points as well. Then again, poor old “Jimmah” couldn’t do either – all he had going for him was a seven tooth smile!
Keep the faith Dave and remember – all will be revealed in the fullness of time!
…. and to Samant Rawat – just who exactly is it who specialises in the killing and maiming of innocents? I would have though that this was a particular tradmark of the Islamofascists – but then I’m just an old fart – what would I know!
“Nothing can dissuade the Pashtuns from their twin passions for boys and guns…at least the Pakistani state is no longer funding these pederasts.”
This was probably the most shocking part of the article for me. I have sifted through the above posts and realised that there are probably more important points to discuss, but am curious. When did this Pashtun-pederast/paedophile charecteristic become a certifiable fact? Can anyone tell me when this became common knowledge as I’ve never heard it mentioned previously?
I’m exhausted. It would have taken but a fraction of the time were it necessary for all posters to first pass a basic course in simple logic and [to take up 'devil dog's' suggestion come to grips with the problem of cognitive dissonance. This might mean they not only understand the original article, but also [perhaps a bridge too far?] have a fighting chance of responding rationally to what it says, rather than what it doesn’t say.
As an ancient [non-Marxist] lefty, however, I suspect tht’s expecting too much. Blind ‘religious’ acceptance of our core beliefs [of both the theistic and non-theistic varieties] is usually too strong to permit us to carefully analyse ANY view — no matter how implausible it is — which helps comfort us.
As a youngster in the early 40s I became aware of intelligent friends’ unquestioning acceptance of quite bizarre religious dogma. Throughout the 40s, ditto blind Marxists. In the 50s, ditto members of various ‘faiths’, each espousing its own dearly held but non-analysed interpretation of issues such as Viet Nam, Korea and everywhere else on the planet. Come the glorious 60s, and while working at one of our more academically demanding unis, I watched sadly as reason began to become an ‘irrelevant’ feature for an increasing proportion of ‘activists’.
Still, what does it matter? Widespread self-esteem is way higher than ever, so the current approach must surely be ‘better’? It’s nowadays acceptable [perhaps demanded?] that ‘critics’ employ as many non sequiturs as possible when attacking their targeted army of straw men, rather than trying to respond to the main thesis in the original article.
George Orwell, were he still with us, would find it all quite fascinating. He might even write a sequel, “2008″, concentrating this time on one aspect of his original book, i.e. the powerful uses to which the destruction of language and logic can be put. Not that such a book would sell well. Reading it would be far too painful —and might even threaten the self-esteem industry’s truly impressive gains?
To be concise and to the point: Whatever you are smoking, sir, must be some really good ganja. No other explanation for your conclusion.
A bunch of crap. ISI funded taliban: True. But what is missing is that ISI was working in close replationship with the CIA. Pakistan never had the resources to muster and organize such a large group. It was the CIA that had joined hands with the ISI and the then late prime minister of Pakistan Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. CIA even settled a base for their operations in the Peshawar city of NWFP under the cover of a university called the agriculture university.
So, if funding and training Taliban makes Pakistan a “BAD”state, then why US should be left out. And we shouldn’t forget what heppened in the cube when CIA organized riots in Cuban borders to produce a pretext for attack; or when the US government supported the El Salvadore’s gurrelas against the Nicaragua for militancy or when US intentionally took steps to destabilize the Nicaraguan democratic government and placed a dictator in Nicaragua.
I think Edward Luttwak should study these issues in depth and the same goes for those who think his view represent the truth.
Well folks on 20 Jan. 2009 George W. Bush will fly off to Crawford, Tx.
to cut the shrubs and Molly Ivins will have been proved correct when she forecast that “Shrub Bush” was the dumbest bunny ever exported out of the great state of Texas and foisted on an unsuspecting America. Let us paraphrase “I come to bury a bush not to praise him for the evil that men do live after them and the good interred with their bones.” History will write the correct epitaph for Bush and Mr. Luttwak will be long dead and forgotten when future Americans realize the depths of stupidity that the neo-cons achieved during their best years.
Let us not be upset with Mr. Luttwak he is entitled to his delusions as are his many admirers. There are many Jim Jones types in our America and though a minority they make for news as they drink their own peculiar mix of “kool aid.”
What did appeared as an incisive and well writted piece of commentary falls down when he starts commenting about things which does not really know. ‘Tamil Nadu was well governed by Brahmins but now ungoverned by lower castes’? Huh, what India has been trying very hard to redress(polarisation of society by caste) is being touted a better state. Further the best leaders of Tamil Nadu were never Brahmins, but ‘ungoverning’ lower castes. Tamil Nadu has one the best infrastructure, IT firms, literacy rate, political stability among all states in India. Please check your facts before brandishing them in the face. It decreases the credibilty of what is otherwise a well written article
ps. No offence
A trillion dollars laid in a pile and set afire, an American city left to fend for itself in disaster, a Constitution in tatters. American soldiers electrocuted in bases with faulty wiring. Reconstruction projects with drain pipes that fill light fixtures with sewage. As far as “winning” in Iraq goes, I suspect the jury will be out on that one for quite a while. 10 years from now there will be a whole generation of Iraqis in their 20s who spent their formative years witnessing their fathers’ heads being blown off and their mothers and sisters subjected to rape as a form of sectarian humiliation. How many of them will be determined and clever enough to find their equivalent of box cutters and connecting flights? Then we’ll really know just how bad a president this AWOL, dry drunk, serial bankrupt, snarling cur has been. Oh, and just to touch on the role of the media in perpetrating this fraud, if the network cameras on that flight deck for the “Mission Accomplished” speech had simply swung their cameras to the the east, they would have captured the most telling aspect of that setting, the San Diego skyline.
as an american ex-pat living in the Gulf, all I can tell you is that the arabs i talk to locally take American power seriously and respect it in a way they haven’t for a very long time. they WANT the stability american power brings. they are more willing to see things our way now. that’s where the realpolitik has paid off. bush demonstrated staying power, patience and amazing grace under pressure with regard to this region. that’s maturity of a type that is inconcievable in the majority of most of the presidents in my lifetime (Reagan another who talked the talk & walked the walk).
luttwak is spot on. all the trash talking in this thread aside, the bush policy has worked. that’s why bush will be remembered fondly in the years to come, in the way reagan came to be grudingly admired by all americans, even lefties, while being vilified during his own term in office.
an unqualified success? certainly not. but he achieved something important; maybe even turned the tide like luttwak has argued. in any case, here’s one soul who is grateful this happened on his watch– rather than gore’s…or kerry’s.
i shudder to think how a pres. obama would respond to a challenge like this… hopefully, it won’t be somethign we have to concern ourselves with, given how he’s hit the wall…already
Congratulations to Prospect Magazine.
It is not easy to publish articles that contradict the so-called popular views that the mass media force down our throats with their biased and often dangerous propaganda.
I fully agree with the sentiments in the article and have held these views for some time.
Were it not for George Bush, we would be facing insurmountable Islamist attacks on our way of life and our physical safety.
Nuclear proliferation and terrorist attacks would be the order of the day.
He stands out like a giant compared to the effete European leaders who are swayed by all manner of propaganda and hoax, whether it be about anthropogenic climate change, the virtues of Multiculturism or the peaceful nature of Islamists.
Well done Edward Luttwak.
And well done Prospect Magazine.
George Bush in his radio addresses a couple of weeks ago, he continues to repeat that the U.S., I’m quoting him, ’saved the world from a tyrant, who was developing weapons of mass destruction, and cultivating ties to terror.’ Well, you know, nobody believes that, including his speechwriter, but they know something else. They know that if you keep repeating a lie long and loud enough, and nobody takes you to account for it, it will become truth.NoamChomskyNoam Chomsky, Chomsky on Iraq, War Profiteers and the Media, 12/26/2003
It’s intersting to contrast the views of Expat-in-ME, reporting firsthand from the seat of the fire (so to speak) with those who pontificate from the safety of their ivory towers, complete with their ‘not-in-my-name’ attitudes and their faux moral equivalence comparisons.
Expat-in-ME puts his/her finger on a very important aspect here – the perception in the Middle East of the US now, versus how it was perceived until comparatively recent times.
Until 9/11, the US was seen as a soft target and terrorist attacks against its worldwide interests increased in scope and magnitude while it took the view that a ‘law-and-order’ rather than a miltary response was required. Indeed, OBL pointed to this perceived weakness with his analogy about the strong horse and the weak horse.
The US reaction to 9/11 unequivocally addressed that point and those for whom the message was intended not only got it loud and clear but acknowledged receipt as well. The fact that many in the West did not get it is to some extent irrelevant; nevertheless it is a regrettable fact that our adversaries take aid and comfort from such attitudes.
To hark back to Reagan yet again, when he bombed Libya in the mid-eighties, Ghadaffi got the message (as he did again in 2003)and got back below the parapet while the chattering classes banged on about warmongering cowboys ad nauseum. Again, when he announced “Star Wars” they all laughed (here we go again!) but the important point was that while the Russians may not have been sure whether the idea would work or not, they had no doubt that Reagan was serious. Similarly, Truman sent the same powerful message with the Berlin Airlift.
Leaders like Bush (2) Truman and Reagan understand/understood that if you want to send a message, you need to phrase it in terms that the intended recipient understands. In this case it’s about ‘respect’ – a concept which has different connotations in different parts of the world. Unfortunately the Left has some difficulty with this idea – they prefer to believe that because they see and react to things in a certain manner, the rest of us should as well. But difference is what makes life interesting isn’t it?
I’m afraid that George Bush will forever, and quite rightly so, seen as an ignorant, intellectually uninterested blusterer and buffoon. Attempts to rehabilitiate him are doomed, because he was ideologically wrong on every major issue.
Indeed, the neocons hava been proved ideologically wrong and, although the chutzpah involved in the brazen attempt to rewrite history is impressive, future generations will not look kindly in either them or Bush.
The response to 911 was reactive. Until that moment, US foreign policy had helped create the Taliban and nurtured Islamic extremism in an utterly misguided desire to damage the Soviet Union (which, unpleasant maybe, was never a threat to the West). They missed, or turned a blind eye to the danger of Saudi-funded support for radical Islamism and then told a whopping big lie that Saddam (again, very unpleasant, funded by the US and the West, and no threat to anyone but its own people) was a supporter of Islamism. He was secular, baathist, a murderer, but not an islamist.
Yes, Islamic theocracy is repellent. The ideology is home grown, with influence from fascism and communism, but it was aided and abbetted by a US that really should have known better. But one can detest this medieval ideology and all it stands for and still see Bush’s actions as flawed and counter-productive (and that is being flattering).
The American economy, a rampant style of cowboy capitalism, in thrall to finance above industry, short termist and in deep, deep, trouble right now, deserves a whole article to itself, and will not be viewed positively unles you think greed and short termism are virtues.
The authro didn’t really get on to other parts of Bush’s failed legacy – the oppostition to any form of action against climate change, the lack of understanding or empathy for the poor in America, those without healthcare, those with job insecurity, or no job.
No, the Bush legacy, and that of the neocons will be one of hubris and failure, of short-sightedness and a disregard for the truth. Only the satirists will miss him.
Comparing Bush with Truman: What a load of crap! What is Luttwak smoking?
The sentiment expressed in this essay is long overdue. In fact, Luttwak could have gone further and highlighted Bush’s skills as a politician. For all the left-wing blather about his supposed intellectual shortcomings, the fact remains that Bush has consistently out-maneuvered and out-smarted his political opponents, beginning in Texas and extending through his two terms in the White House. The recently passed spy bill is but the latest in a long list of legislative triumphs, it being all the more impressive for the fact that Republicans are now the minority party in both the House and Senate. In this context it’s especially amusing to read the predictable nonsense about Bush being a “dumb bunny”, etc.
Luttwak also could have devoted some column inches to contrasting the media environments during the respective Truman and Bush presidencies. For all the difficulties he encountered, Truman never had to contend with a deranged left adept at using communications technology to spread all manner of baseless accusations and invective. The postings on this page are rife with relevant examples. Worse still, Truman did not have to deal with an openly hostile national entertainment/media industrial complex. There were no Michael Moores or Oliver Stones in Truman’s day, just as there was no Huffington Post, Salon, or any other contemporary “progressive” website you might care to mention. Yes, there are conservative blogs and websites, in the same way there are conservative publications. However, there is no conservative corollary or counterbalance to the influence wielded by Hollywood, which is unapologetically and very nearly monolithically liberal in terms of its political sympathies. By the same token, conservative publications, and to a lesser extent conservative blogs/websites, are relegated to a kind of media ghetto, whereas the left’s information outlets frequently influence mainstream political dialog. When was the last time you heard or saw an item from National Review or The Weekly Standard highlighted by a mainstream media outlet? In contrast, yellow journalist Seymour Hersh — he of the dubiously sourced, crackpot New Yorker stories — regularly receives fawning attention from the likes of CNN. Yes, the right dominates talk radio, but again the influence in this instance is hardly comparable on a national level. The effect of all this is a left-wing echo chamber/noise machine that seems to grow more shrill with each passing day. (Call it a media law of group dynamics.) Again, Truman never had to deal with anything remotely as pernicious.
Bush rolled back jihadism?!? Where? Not in Iraq. He brought it there. He did so briefly in Afghanistan, but took his eye off the ball and now it’s resurgent there. He did catch that Padilla guy, so I guess he rolled back jihadism in Chicago.
There was a unique moment after 9/11 to expose and confront Islamo-fascism in a way that clearly illustrated the unique power of western-style liberal democracy. Instead, Bush became entranced by PNAC’s dusty Iraq fixation.
He had the resolve that was needed for the times, but tragically, not the judgment. His legacy will be one of missed opportunity.
PS
Screw Luttwak for perpetuating the “Obama is a muslim” lie in the NYT.
PPS
Benson, is Judith Miller or Fox News part of “openly hostile national entertainment/media industrial complex”? Just wondering.
Fox News is a cable outlet, and thus commands a tiny fraction of the audience share regularly enjoyed by network newscasts, and in fact draws an audience comparable to that of PBS — you know, the outfit that broadcasts the rantings of everyone’s favorite Alzheimer’s patient/pseudo journalist/propagandist Bill Moyers. And the fact that you’ve managed to identify but a single reporter among all that foreign correspondents working on behalf of the nation’s metro dailies and wire services in Iraq who wasn’t reflexively anti-Bush essentially supports my argument. Fox News and Judith Miller are in fact the exceptions that conclusively prove the rule. Have you read the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, or the New Yorker lately (or ever)? Just wondering.
I think we might have unwittingly published a typo in the luttwak piece. Surely Bush rolled OUT Jihadism, not back. There was a huge amount of unpleasantness and injustice but precious little Islamic terrorism in brutally secularist Iraq before his fateful intervention, for example. Jihadism in Afghanistan was fostered and begotten by the US, who also played a leading role in the development of Shiite extremism in Iran. Nobody in Pakistan (where Musharraf, the highly democratic US puppet has been forced from office) or in India would recognise the claim that Jihad is on the wane. Today’s IHT headline, that Taliban atrocities are at their post 2001 height, further undermines Luttwak’s wild claim.
However, despite some of the lowest current poll ratings for a serving president in US political history (32% at last count) It is fair to predict that history will rehabilitate and launder the reputation of Bush Jr. however. Nor is Prospect unique in starting the job early. See Fareed Zakaria cover story in the 18-25 August edition of Newsweek. purely coincidental, of course.