Puke Alert: Bush as great as Roosevelt

[Nederland]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6728160/site/newsweek/

<snip>

Although it can easily be argued that George W. Bush and Tony Blair face a far lesser challenge than Roosevelt and Churchill did—that the war on terror is not a third world war—they may well, with the passage of time and the opening of the archives, join the ranks of Roosevelt and Churchill. Their own societies are too divided today to deliver a calm judgment, and many of their achievements may be in the future: when Iraq has a stable democracy, with Al Qaeda neutralized, and when Israel and the Palestinian Authority are independent democracies, living side by side in constructive economic cooperation. If they can move this latter aim, to which Bush and Blair pledged themselves on Nov. 12, it will be a leadership achievement of historic proportions.

The leadership of Churchill and Roosevelt in the second world war was conducted in such a way that only many years after the war were its true parameters clear. This is also true of Bush and Blair: only when the secret telegrams and conversations become available will we really know who did what, who influenced whom. Before the war against Saddam Hussein, Blair's emissary Sir David Manning was flying almost weekly to Washington, but it may be many years before we know what decisions were reached during these journeys. Any accurate assessment of Bush and Blair must wait, perhaps a decade or longer, until the record can be scrutinized.


<snip>