Presidential Quarantine
Why Bush can't leave America -- and why that matters
By Jeremy Mayer
Web Exclusive: 4.1.03
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George W. Bush is under an international quarantine. It is not security
concerns that prevent him from going overseas, nor is it the unseemly
appearance of leaving the White House while our troops fight along the
Euphrates. Rather, Bush can't leave America because his policies are
intensely unpopular in almost every country on earth.
What country could this president visit that wouldn't immediately erupt
into massive civil unrest? A Bush visit to Western Europe would make
2001's violent anti-globalization demonstrations in Genoa look like a tea
party.
This explains why British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's only real
ally in this war, came to Washington instead of hosting Bush in London.
It also explains why a few weeks ago Bush met with Blair and the leaders
of Spain and Portugal in the Azores. By meeting at a U.S. airbase on an
isolated archipelago with a population roughly equal to that of Akron,
Ohio, Bush avoided the anger in the European streets. Although the
Portuguese prime minister welcomed our president to "Europe,"
the sad truth is that Bush will not be welcome in the real Western Europe
for months, if not years.
Some might say that the effective quarantine of an American president
does not matter. After all, it has happened before, and with little
apparent long-term effect. In the summer of 1960, as Japan debated a new
treaty with the United States, leftist and pacifist forces launched
demonstrations so vast that then-President Dwight Eisenhower canceled
plans to visit. Similarly, in 1958, Vice President Richard Nixon's trip
to South America met with such violent outrage that a warship was sent in
case extraction by force became necessary. The extreme hostility to
America's foreign policy in Japan and South America eventually subsided.
But this is different. The center of the rage is Western Europe,
historically the home of America's closest allies. American presidents
have often been greeted by cheering throngs of Europeans, as when Woodrow
Wilson went to Paris in 1919. Trips to Europe produced some of the modern
presidency's greatest moments, from John F. Kennedy's "Ich bin ein
Berliner" speech to Ronald Reagan's eloquent elegy to the boys of
D-Day. Even when the visit of an American president sparked
demonstrations, it was clear to all concerned that the vast majority of
the populace supported America's role in the world.
Today, as an ominous boycott of American products spreads, it is obvious
that the anger at America is deep and extends far beyond Western Europe.
Bush's quarantine involves almost all of the Middle East, Latin America,
Australia and New Zealand, and even some Asian countries. Polls in some
Eastern European nations suggest less intense opposition to America, but
those countries are geographically close to Western Europe -- a
presidential visit to Bucharest would likely attract hundreds of
thousands of demonstrators from Germany and France. A trip to a less
stable nation, such as Egypt or Pakistan, could severely weaken or even
bring down the host government.
The world's citizens are so helpless in the face of America's military
supremacy and unilateral foreign policy that the only way they can
express their anger is through civil unrest and boycotts. Even a visit to
America's neighbors, Mexico or Canada, would produce scenes of
unprecedented anti-American demonstrations.
And those images would matter here at home. In 1960, Kennedy used the
anti-Nixon demonstrations abroad to argue that the nation was losing
stature in the world. A foreign trip by Bush now would reveal to the
average American in pictures -- so vivid that even FOX News couldn't spin
them away -- just how bitterly our policies are opposed around the globe.
Once the war is over and the occupation begins, reporters will start to
ask why our president isn't traveling anymore. Karl Rove will have to
think of a place to send him. Outside of Israel or Afghanistan, the
choices will be slim. Of course, Bush could safely go to a country where
the government uses brutality to stop demonstrations. Which means that it
has come to this: The American president, who once symbolized the value
of freedom to many people around the world, can now only visit countries
where dissent is crushed.
So what's it going to be, Mr. President: Havana or Beijing?
Jeremy Mayer is a visiting assistant professor at Georgetown
University and the author of 9-11: The Giant Awakens.
http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2003/04/mayer-je-04-01.html
