Presidency on the line
Jan 30
Peter Hartcher in Washington
US planning over the past year for the confrontation with Iraq has put
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's survival in jeopardy, but now it also
endangers another leader - America's George Bush.
The combination of Bush's troop deployments, diplomatic insistence and
political rhetoric has carried him across a threshold of commitment. He
cannot pull back and expect to win re-election.
With his Iraq venture, he has now put at stake his personal credibility,
the viability of his presidency, the strategy of pre-emption, the
plausibility of US commitments in the Middle East, the fate of the
Republican Party, and the future of US conservatism.
In his State of the Union address yesterday, the US President said of the
behaviour of the Iraqi regime: "If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning."
This could be subject to political paraphrase: "If Bush does not triumph
decisively over Hussein, then Bush's America has no meaning.''
The US has 160,000 troops and four aircraft carrier battle groups
converging on Iraq's borders, the biggest mobilisation since the 1991 Gulf
War.
Bush has declared that he will send his Secretary of State, Colin Powell,
to issue a demarche to the UN Security Council to support a war or get out
of the way.
And he has presented to the biggest possible presidential audience the task
of confronting Iraq as a national and global, security and humanitarian,
political and moral responsibility of the highest order.
He likened the Iraqi dictator's plans for dominance of the Middle East to
"Hitlerism, militarism and communism".
Then he said: "Once again we are called to defend the safety of our people,
and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility."
By marshalling all the power of the US and of the presidency in this
escalating commitment, Bush has obliged himself to forge ahead at any cost
to defeat Hussein.
To do anything less would invite destruction at the hands of his
conservative base. The peace vote would rejoice in a Bush backdown, but the
Democrats' supporters would still not vote for him and he would be ruined.
So Bush's course is now set, and he is quite prepared to wreck the UN-based
international order to fulfil it. As he said himself in his address: "Our
war against terror is a contest of will, in which perseverance is power."
Bush will now, by the sheer weight of the commitments he has thrown into
the task, be obliged to persevere both at home and abroad at almost any
cost to defeat Hussein.
Unless Hussein, by some miracle, goes into early retirement, Bush and
Hussein cannot both survive.
http://afr.com/world/2003/01/30/FFXYXWEMIBD.html
