Do you think it’s possible that Bush’s “bad cop” mentality and treatment of allies might actually serve the US in the long run? Is it possible that he is providing the perfect foil for a good cop president to come along and perform the diplomatic equivalent of make-up sex? Bush gets to flex a little US muscle, show we will act unilaterally when pushed, set up a kiosk for democracy in the middle east and the next president can blame it on “that cowboy Bush” with point made, goals achieved and relationships better than ever. The crazier and more offensive Bush becomes, the easier it will be to blame current US policy on Bush rather than any ideology inherent to the US. He reminds me of a child that says things that everyone else is thinking but has too much decorum to ever say in public. The more Bush acts like a child, the more the next president can come in and say, “Sorry, you know how kids can be.” I’m not suggesting this is Bush’s grand plan but in the grand chaotic, non-linear world of future history, does anyone else think it’s possible?
You’re making a good point, but you start losing it when you start calling it “childish.” Whether or not Bush is consciously thinking “I’m going to be a hard-ass and the next guy can mend fences,” I dunno. But I think that is the effect. Groups who would contemplate tolerating violence against the US need to be reminded that we can be far more violent in return if we need be. People are more inclined to accept carrots if they know you also have a Big Stick and will use it.
Also remember that the idea of the good cop / bad cop routine is to extract confessions, and I think it has done so; IMO the US now knows that several countries long-term strategic interests are opposite from theirs and can plan accordingly. Doesn’t mean they’re enemies; and once the bad cop leaves the room, you can go back to smiling and making nice. But the US has a better idea than they have for many years who they can count on when push comes to shove.
Considering that the next president after Bush is likely to be a democrat, would he really want to make them look that good?
Just a thought.
How about, "The more Bush acts like a child in the eyes of some…?
The way I’m reading the OP, you’re saying that Bush is accomplishing certain goals that a more diplomatic president might not be able to accomplish without engendering the ire of other nations, and that a succeeding president could enjoy the benefits of these accomplishments while blaming the ill-will on Bush. But that assumes that Bush is accomplishing something with his cowboy foreign policy, and I don’t think that’s a given at all. For example, even if we are successful in setting up a puppet regime in Iraq (and assuming it doesn’t simply revert to an anti-US regime as soon as our forces leave), we do so at the cost of alienating all of the other Arab nations, so isn’t it pretty much a wash? I see no reason to think they are all of a sudden going to love us when Bush is out of office.
This theory only works if the Bush-successor can get back international goodwill without taking steps to undo (some of) the effects of Bush’s “bad cop” act.
While I agree that getting Bush out of office would help restore some of the international cooperation and goodwill we’ve lost, I don’t think it’ll come solely because there’s a new guy in office – rather, it will be on the expectation that the new guy will undo some of the damage George has already wreaked.
blowero, you seem to imply that “alienating all of the other Arab nations” is something that started with Bush. Anti-American sentiment has been fostered and bred for decades, and was emboldened by the US not “finishing” the Gulf War (we met our goals, but it was seen there by many that Saddam stood up the US and survived) by failure in Somalia and tepid responses numerous attacks by the ObL crowd. This is not a political thing on Clinton, as nobody else was calling for a broadbased proactive approach to the ME either. But if you read what ObL has written, it is very clear that he thought of the US as a paper tiger that wouldn’t fight back; the same theme reappears throughout Militant Muslim rhetoric. IOW, our restraint was interpreted as weakness.
I use the past tense because they obviously don’t think that way any more. Now there can be no doubt: Fuck with the Americans too long, and they will stand up for themselves. Do we want the rest of the Middle East to fear us? Naw, but they do need to know that we have limits and that we can act. The next president will start his conversations with world leaders from a different place. They will want to make deals and compromises, becuase they don’t want the Bad Cop to come back in the room.
To put it in concrete terms, I suggest than if in 2008 or so, President Hillary tells Syria that we are sick and tired of them tolerating terrorist groups and that we want to see it stop, Boy Assad will NOT be thinking “Yeah, what are you gonna do about it?”
I’m not sure how frequently these reminders are needed. Can anyone and particularly those who dislike the U.S. have actually been surprised that the invasion was a very real possibility?
The supposed inherent violence of U.S. foreign policy is a rallying cry to many of these groups. So off the top of my head in my life time we have Panama, Grananda and now Iraq as invasion-stick demos. Toss in other mini adventures and I fear people may have gotten the point, they’re just not taking it the way we’d like.
Furt, while I agree that Bush certainly didn’t create anti-US sentiment among Arab nations, he certainly hasn’t helped. And among our allies his foreign policy has in fact created distrust that didn’t exist before. As for the rest of what you are saying, I think it just amounts to a difference in philosophy. You obviously think that saber-rattling is an effective way to make our enemies fall in line; I disagree. I don’t see any evidence that our recent military campaigns have reduced terrorism one single bit. If anything, it has increased the resolve of terrorists to oppose us.
- You did read me correctly
- Yes, there was an implied assumption that Bush’s policies are accomplishing something even if at the expense of current diplomatic relations.
The “make-up sex” comment was primarily directed at the members of the UN Security Council, not Arab countries. There wasn’t much more Bush could do to alienate the Arabs as it was, but I do think it’s possible that their respect for the US went up a notch. They respect force not diplomacy. In the long run, I think the establishment of a democratic Muslim nation in the Middle East (which I believe will happen) is the single best root-striking gambit on terrorism that can be made. Sure there will be tough times ahead; Germany in 1945 looked more grim than Iraq does now, but no one looks back on that with regret.
Absolutely yes. Don’t have the cites handy, but I’ve read exactly that. Not that they didn’t believe the US would never do anything, but that they wouldn’t have the nerve for a “real” fight. Yes, the Americans will do pushover jobs like Grenada or Panama, or drop bombs like in Bosnia, but as soon as you bloody their nose, they chicken out. Reagan’s wimp-out in Beirut and Bush 41/Clinton’s in Somalia are the ones most often cited. Certainly, you can go back to Afghanistan and read all the confident predictions from the Taliban and various anti-Americans that the US would not be up to a land war in Afghanistan (which we weren’t really; we made no effort to take and hold significant portions of land, but we did more than they expected possible and that’s what counted) and you heard the same things before Iraq.
NYT’s Friedman put it well when he said the important lesson of Iraq for the rest of the ME was not that we were willing to kill to defend ourselves, but that we were willing to take casualties to defend ourselves.
NOT if it’s just empty saber-rattling. Nor do I advocate an all-tough-all-the-time approach. But I also do not think a foreign policy of milk and cookies is an adult approach to a world where there will always be people who oppose you no matter what you do. You need both, which is why the Good Cop/Bad Cop metaphor is apt. Neither one is as effective as both together. In spite of our earnest wishes, we do not live in a world where everyone is bound to get along with one another if we’d just sit down and talk.
On a long-term basis, I don’t want the world thinking that we’re out there looking to kick the ass of anyone who pisses us off. But I also want there to never be any confusion about the fact the we CAN, and that we will if we’re pushed past our limit. At some point, Washington will decide that that has been established, and put the battleaxe away; and that switch will either be occasioned by or lead to a change in administration.
How could I have forgotten Afghanistan! A recent post-Somalia full on invasion.
I don’t know, the message conveyed seems more “we’ll use it if we feel like it” rather than “use it if we have to”. Not that the former won’t keep some people in line, but it gets others thinking the carrot is a ruse. YMMV, blah,blah.
Have to say that, over all, I agree with Furt on this one. Possibly the ONLY good thing that came out of the Iraqi war (from my perspective) is that I think the other powers in the ME region (and elsewhere) now take the US deadly seriously as far as our willingness to use our military and sustain casualities. Furt is right about the fact that ‘common wisdom’ in other countries was that the US wasn’t willing to sustain casualities…basically they were a paper tiger.
This ‘common wisdom’ goes back a long time as well. Its also a total misunderstanding of America and the people here, but I can certainly see where they get the idea. They look at such things as the protests that ultimately got us out of Vietnam, without looking at the years that the US soaked up casualities there. They look at the Gulf War, and how America backed off (at the urging of our allies) instead of finishing SH off when we had the chance. They look at things like Somalia and think that the US will always back down. They forget that the America people actually don’t have that much of a problem with casualities…IF they feel the cause is a good one.
I, also am not an advocate of ‘being tough all the time’. Sometimes its a good idea to play the game and get along. I disagreed with Furt and others that on the recent dust up about the excluded contracts in Iraq…I felt it was a good time for one last time at reconcilliation and for the US to attempt to ‘bridge the gap’ through such a gesture. However, sometimes a nation state like ours DOES have to be the bad guy, and do what IT thinks is best. And sometimes it IS a good idea that other nations that might be considering fucking with you understand the ramifications of such actions.
I feel pretty confident that if the Taliban knew the world of hurts that would decend on them, they would have played things differently. The problem was, they figured they could fight it out and win…bad call, that. Had SH known that we were dead serious, I think he would have tried to be concilliatory much sooner in the game. Again, I think HE thought he could simply bluff and bluster and the status quo would simply continue…bad call on his part, but I can understand how he miscalculated.
And I suspect that even our old buddy ObL would have had second thoughts if he had of realized the full extent of what he unleashed. Kicking the sleeping grizzly bear in the balls might not have been the smartest play. Oh, it achieved what he was after…namely getting the US involved in the ME where he and his merry men could get at us. However, I for one dinna think that things are going as he planned.
-XT
If we learn anything from the last 15 years I would hope that it’s “Don’t draw a line in the sand if your not willing to punch the guy who crosses it.” If we had been consistent in our discipline then perhaps the “kids” would have been less likely to test us.
Not to turn this into an Afghanistan thread but: didn’t the Taliban say “Show us some reasonable evidence and we’ll hand him over”? Would “play things differently” mean complete capitulation? Why did Saddam not heed the Afghan example? (instead he followed the same apparent mistake by allowing inspecters full access 
)
The Afghanistan invasion could be considered a warning about openly harbouring anti-US militants (you simply can’t say some things with a missle strike) but that hasn’t helped us catch Saddam or OBL.
I simply think this hoped for message is not what’s going out.
Interesting mix’o metophors there KidCharlemagne.
You’re going to need a new President. Otherwise presumably Bush will say “I have the support of the American people!” and invade somewhere else.
Yes. The US made it clear they were not interested in here’s-the-evidence, no-not-enough, here’s-more, we’ll-think-it-over … 9/11 was Casus Belli, as were any number of other attacks in the last 10 years that we ignored. We made demands, they refused, they died. That’s war.
**
Because he was an arrogant fuckknob that thought he was special. His probably could have stayed in power if he had granted full access from day 1, modeled on the way South Africa did. He didn’t. He wanted to play you-can-look-here-but-not-there, oh-if-you-insist-you-can-come-in-but-not-till-Monday …
No. That’s not the way you talk to an angry bear. You say “look anywhere, any how” or you brace for a fight.
And in the same way, and this is where I differ from Xtisme, the same message has to go out to people like France and Germany that want to triangulate. When the bear is angry, you don’t get in its way or you will get hurt. You either get behind it or get the hell out of the room.
They are in need of the Bad Cop treatment all the more because we were allies for a long time. This stupid contract thing is a very deliberate slap in the face, telling them that this is still a war we’re fighting, and they don’t want to get in our way any more.
I hope that in 2015 the US and the French are back to arguing over nothing more than Jerry Lewis. But in the meantime, they need to be reminded that deliberately interfering in something we regard, rightly or wrongly, as a matter of national security WILL have consequences.
I think it very possible that at some point
do not want
Damnit, preview you fool.
Now everyone knows that scintillating prose doesn’t just flow …
On my first preview I had written “…they would be less likely to test us and I would be less likely to mix metaphors.” Should have left it in.