Bush more certain than ever on Iraq war
04/25/2005 10:06:35 AM
Posted: Monday, April 25, 2005
WASHINGTON -- Two years after his much-maligned "mission accomplished" speech aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, President Bush and his foreign policy team are trumpeting developments in the Middle East as a vindication of his Iraq policy.
The orderly selection of a new government in Iraq, the announced departure of Syrians from Lebanon, the election of a new Palestinian leader, and elections in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have breathed life into a foreign policy that many predicted would be the president's undoing.
Hardly a day goes by without Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or another senior administration official speaking publicly about the "march of freedom" and the success of the Iraq invasion in securing peace.
"There's a movement toward freedom around the world," Bush said in an interview with a Lebanese television station this past week. "I believe that a true free society, one that self-governs, one that listens to the people, will be a peaceful society -- not an angry society."
The notion that the world is more peaceful as a result of the U.S. invasion, let alone that the mission was a success, is far from universally accepted.
In the two years since Bush declared an end to "major combat operations, " thousands of Iraqis and nearly 1,500 Americans have died; U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $200 billion to secure the peace; troops discovered no weapons of mass destruction, which was the principal reason stated by Bush to justify the attack; and a majority of Americans now say they disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq.
Yet the perception by critics that the mission is unproductive, or a debacle, shows no sign of resonating at the White House, where, quite to the contrary, it is evident that Bush feels emboldened by the past two years' experience.
Bush's words suggest he views himself as a transformational figure, able to use the example of American democracy, and the might of the U.S. military, to reshape the governance of an entire region. Rather than serve as a caretaker of a humble foreign policy, a role Bush advocated as a presidential candidate in 2000, he speaks of spreading freedom -- "Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world" -- around the globe.
"The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty," Bush recently told troops in Fort Hood, Texas. "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a crushing defeat to the forces of tyranny and terror, and a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."
Bush always mentions that much hard work lies ahead. His handlers have been careful not to repeat the display of the "mission accomplished" banner that hung from the aircraft carrier behind his May 1, 2003, speech -- and became a rallying cry to opponents who decried as delusional his optimism about Iraq.
Yet there is a tone of vindication as administration officials defend a policy that prompted anger and scorn from people and many governments around the globe.
The decision to topple Hussein "was not a popular decision, but a decision that now, I think, people are beginning to see has unlocked the possibility of a different kind of Middle East, most especially as they saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30 and as people in Egypt and Lebanon and other places saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30," Rice told editorial writers earlier this month.
"You can continue to talk about neoconservatives or non-neoconservatives or realists or whatever you want to talk about, but you cannot deny that something is happening in the Middle East that wasn't happening even six months ago," she said. "And, I'm sorry, it didn't just happen by chance."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)
AP-NY-04-25-05 1033EDT
The orderly selection of a new government in Iraq, the announced departure of Syrians from Lebanon, the election of a new Palestinian leader, and elections in Egypt and Saudi Arabia have breathed life into a foreign policy that many predicted would be the president's undoing.
Hardly a day goes by without Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice or another senior administration official speaking publicly about the "march of freedom" and the success of the Iraq invasion in securing peace.
"There's a movement toward freedom around the world," Bush said in an interview with a Lebanese television station this past week. "I believe that a true free society, one that self-governs, one that listens to the people, will be a peaceful society -- not an angry society."
The notion that the world is more peaceful as a result of the U.S. invasion, let alone that the mission was a success, is far from universally accepted.
In the two years since Bush declared an end to "major combat operations, " thousands of Iraqis and nearly 1,500 Americans have died; U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $200 billion to secure the peace; troops discovered no weapons of mass destruction, which was the principal reason stated by Bush to justify the attack; and a majority of Americans now say they disapprove of the president's handling of Iraq.
Yet the perception by critics that the mission is unproductive, or a debacle, shows no sign of resonating at the White House, where, quite to the contrary, it is evident that Bush feels emboldened by the past two years' experience.
Bush's words suggest he views himself as a transformational figure, able to use the example of American democracy, and the might of the U.S. military, to reshape the governance of an entire region. Rather than serve as a caretaker of a humble foreign policy, a role Bush advocated as a presidential candidate in 2000, he speaks of spreading freedom -- "Almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world" -- around the globe.
"The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad will be recorded, alongside the fall of the Berlin Wall, as one of the great moments in the history of liberty," Bush recently told troops in Fort Hood, Texas. "The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a crushing defeat to the forces of tyranny and terror, and a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."
Bush always mentions that much hard work lies ahead. His handlers have been careful not to repeat the display of the "mission accomplished" banner that hung from the aircraft carrier behind his May 1, 2003, speech -- and became a rallying cry to opponents who decried as delusional his optimism about Iraq.
Yet there is a tone of vindication as administration officials defend a policy that prompted anger and scorn from people and many governments around the globe.
The decision to topple Hussein "was not a popular decision, but a decision that now, I think, people are beginning to see has unlocked the possibility of a different kind of Middle East, most especially as they saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30 and as people in Egypt and Lebanon and other places saw Iraqis voting on Jan. 30," Rice told editorial writers earlier this month.
"You can continue to talk about neoconservatives or non-neoconservatives or realists or whatever you want to talk about, but you cannot deny that something is happening in the Middle East that wasn't happening even six months ago," she said. "And, I'm sorry, it didn't just happen by chance."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)
AP-NY-04-25-05 1033EDT
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