Bush's Path from "Humility" to "Bring it On"

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Bush's Path from "Humility" to "Bring it On"
Analysis by John Feffer*

WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (IPS) - George W. Bush entered the White House in 2001 with the least foreign policy experience and the most modest foreign policy programme of any modern U.S. president.

He was focused on domestic issues. He promised a "compassionate conservatism". In a 2000 presidential debate with Al Gore, he recoiled from the image of an arrogant United States offending the rest of the world. "If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us," he said. "If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."

Eight years later, Bush leaves behind a very different legacy. Foreign policy dominated his two terms, from the global war on terror to the invasion of Iraq, from the collapse of the global economy to the rising concerns over global warming. This approach was neither conservative nor compassionate, but radical in scope and brutal in effect.

And the president who promised to lead a humble nation presided instead over an extraordinary display of national arrogance that, as Bush the candidate predicted, led to unprecedented global unpopularity for the United States.

Bush dates his own transformation to the Sep. 11 attacks that his administration was singularly unsuccessful in preventing and woefully unprepared to address. At the same time, the changes put into place after 2001 were also carefully scripted by a group of neoconservatives, led by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who had waited many years to obtain power and expand U.S. military dominance.

But this story of a radical rupture in U.S. foreign policy -- as a result of either unanticipated tragedy or carefully prepared politics -- is only half the story. The arrogance and overreach of the Bush team only partially explains the failures of their foreign policy.

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