Bush's Refusal to Talk to Some Countries is Personality, not Policy

Bush's Refusal to Talk to Some Countries is Personality, not Policy
Daniel Kohanski

All presidents impose their policies on the executive branch. Bush, to a greater extent than any other president that comes to mind, has imposed his personality on it. By various means he has turned the executive into a bullying immature brat which sees its wishes as reality, the law as an impediment, diplomacy as weakness, torture (think of the teenage Bush blowing up frogs for fun) as a legitimate way to gather evidence, and force as the first answer. Much as a younger, drunken Bush once challenged his father to go "mano a mano," the Bush administration now tells the world "my way or the highway" and "you are either with us or you are a terrorist" or at best a supporter of terrroism. In its refusal to be held accountable for any of its actions, the Bush White House is following not a policy of the president, but an aspect of his personality. All his life he has dodged responsibility, and when he can no longer dodge it, he counts on his father and his father's friends to bail him out of trouble. The Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group is but the latest example of a pattern that goes back to his incomplete service in the Texas Air National Guard, where his father's connections saved him from the war, and his failed oil company, which his father's friends rescued from bankruptcy.

A particularly troublesome aspect of Bush's personality is his distaste for talking with people who disagree with him, or who challenge his view of the world. All presidents are in danger of sycophancy; Bush, far from guarding against it, seems to relish it. Bob Woodward describes how when officials reported to Bush after visiting Iraq, they would consistently conceal their true concerns, and he never pressed them or questioned their findings. It reached the point that when his staff had to tell him about the true damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, they reported being terrified at the prospect. It could also be seen in the last presidential campaign, where attendees at his campaign rallies had to sign a pledge of loyalty to Bush, and people who showed any sign of disagreement or question were summarily arrested, in violation of their free speech rights. Demonstrators at Bush gatherings are kept way out of sight, far exceeding the demands of security. Bush's meetings with Democrats are largely limited to the demands of law and political necessity, his public pronouncements of bipartisanship notwithstanding. His mishandling of Senator James Jeffords is especially telling, as it cost the GOP their Senate majority for two years.

This kind of political hubris is risky enough in the domestic field, since it will work only as long as Bush is riding high and can count on a subservient GOP majority in Congress. Politicians have long memories, especially of slights and insults, and his disdain for opposition will come back to haunt him now with the new Democratic majority. But there are far worse consequences to be found in the foreign sector. Bush refused to speak to Yassir Arafat until the day he died, one of the reasons (among many others) that he made no progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bush refuses to this day to allow one-on-one talks with North Korea, and was only reluctantly persuaded to join the six-nation talks, which he does nothing to encourage, largely because he pesonally despises Kim Jong-Il, and now North Korea claims to have joined the nuclear club. (Newsweek recently reported that Bush's insulting remarks about Kim - "a pygmy" - to a Republican gathering in 2002 gave added push to the North Koreans determination to develop the bomb.) Gerhard Schroder disagreed with Bush on the need to go to war with Iraq, and Bush sank US-German relations into an unprecedented chill that only warmed when Schroder left office.

From his first day in office, Bush has refused to have any meaningful conversations with Iran and Syria, countries he considers "evil." (Syria was not one of the infamous "Axis of Evil" countries, but Bush has made it clear what he thinks of Assad and his government.) Even today, when Iran and Syria's help are essential if he is to salvage anything out of the Iraq mess, and even when his staunchest ally, Tony Blair, is urging Bush to talk to them, and even though the Baker group is poised to recommend the same, Bush is showing no signs of relenting .He will not talk with those he despises, no matter what the cost to the country or the world.

Let me pause here to say that I am not a psychologist, and this is not an attempt at psychohistory. In any case psychoanalysis from a distance is worth little more than Bill Frist's "diagnosis" ot Terri Schiavo. Nor is it clear to what degree we can realistically separate personality from policy. After all, it is neoconservative policy to project force in preference to diplomacy, to hold that America should dictate terms to the world and the world should, much like subjects of the Chinese emperors, hear and tremblingly obey. The neo-cons flocked to Bush, and he to them, because were a match for each other. Nonetheless, I see Bush as being stubborn beyond the point where even some of the neo-cons are saying, enough; the policy - or at least Bush's implementation of the policy - has failed.

Great leadership requires a subordination of personality to policy. It means doing what is necessary, regardless of how it may go against the grain. Richard Nixon went to China. Ronald Reagan sat down with Mikhail Gorbachev. Bill Clinton talked to Arafat (though it did no good). Winston Churchill, whom Bush admires (and, we are told, likes to compare himself to), used to say "it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war." If Bush cannot bring himself, even at this late date when all is crumbling around him, to talk with the North Koreans, with the Syrians and the Iranians, this will be a failure of leadership that stems from his personality at least as much as his policies. And it will cost the world dearly.