“Do I Care About My Personal Standing? Not Really.”
‘the liberation of 50 million people from the clutches of barbaric regimes is noteworthy, at a minimum’.
The Observer:
I freed millions from barbarism, says President with no regrets
For a political leader who has rivalled Gordon Brown’s vertiginous nosedive in the opinion polls in the past year, president George W Bush looked remarkably untroubled by self-doubt as he crossed Europe last week.
The focus back home has shifted to the battle between Barack Obama and John McCain to succeed him. But Bush, on his last European tour as American President, is determined to prosecute his foreign policy agenda for his final seven months in the White House. Dealing aggressively with Iran, and its continuing nuclear aspirations, is top of the list. Stabilising and rebuilding Iraq, staying the course in Afghanistan and building a ‘unity’ alliance with key European leaders to achieve these goals are the other themes of the farewell trip.
At street level, the president’s visit to Slovenia, Germany, Italy, France and now Britain has sometimes had an almost surreal quality. It is not just the politicians and pundits who seem to have begun shifting their gaze to a post-Bush era. Despite a small scattering of demonstrations, with a further protest expected in London, there has been little of the fire and fury that greeted him at the height of the controversy over the Iraq invasion.
On the road to Fiumicino airport in Rome, where as in other capitals on his itinerary the police had far outnumbered any demonstrators, one taxi driver remarked: ‘Bush has been very bad for my country.’ But when asked what he had against the US President, it was not climate change policy, Iraq or Guantánamo Bay: ‘It’s the traffic!’
Bush’s focus, as he made clear in a lengthy Observer interview before his arrival in London today for talks with Brown, has been on forging a broader relationship with Europe that moves on from the days of his close partnership with Tony Blair. A united front is deemed vital to deal with what he sees as the West’s single most pressing policy challenge - heading off Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. ‘All options,’ Bush has stated repeatedly, remain ‘on the table’ if diplomacy fails to get Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to abandon Iran’s uranium enrichment programme.
On his way to London, Bush was pressing broadly sympathetic leaders in Berlin, Rome and Paris on that issue, as well as on the need to beef up allied support for the battle against the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
He may be on his way out next January, conceivably to be replaced by a Democratic candidate fiercely critical of his foreign-policy approach. But Rome’s closed thoroughfares, the small army of secret-service agents and the motorcade waiting to speed Bush to a meeting with the Pope after the Observer interview offered a reminder that he still holds the most powerful political office in the world. Bush has no regrets about how he has used that power. Asked what he thinks his legacy might be, he says he is happy to await the verdict of history. But he cannot resist also offering his own, suggesting ‘the liberation of 50 million people from the clutches of barbaric regimes is noteworthy, at a minimum’.
As the jacketless president expanded on his foreign policy strategy in the garden of the palatial 17th-century US ambassador’s residence on a Rome hilltop, he was keen to shift the focus away from the prospect of American military action against Iran. His interest, he said, was in ‘results’ - in demonstrating sufficient Western steel, through toughened economic and financial sanctions, to resolve the Iran issue diplomatically.
The real ‘options on the table’ that should worry the world lay elsewhere - in the likelihood of moves by Iran’s Arab neighbours to develop nuclear weapons of their own. He said the ‘time is now’ for the outside world to put in place ‘diplomacy with consequences’ to bring Iran’s uranium-enrichment activities to an end, not least because he believed that a new group of European leaders had ‘gone beyond the Iraq period’ and were engaged with the US in multilateral efforts on a range of other issues.
In London, however, Iraq inevitably will be back on the agenda. Today will begin for the President and the First Lady, Laura Bush, when they meet the Queen and Prince Philip at Windsor Castle, and will end with dinner with the Browns. But tomorrow - after breakfast with an international Middle East envoy named Tony Blair - he will have formal Downing Street talks with Brown and discuss a ‘timetable’ for British troop withdrawals from Iraq.
Asked in the Rome interview about popular opposition in Britain to the war and his presidency, he replied: ‘Do I care? Only to the extent that it affects people’s view of the citizens I represent. Do I care about my personal standing? Not really.’
He remained, he said, convinced that Iraq, and the world, was a better place without Saddam Hussein. And he said that while ‘Presidents don’t get to do re-dos’ on issues such as Saddam’s lack of weapons of mass destruction, there was one lesson from the run-up to the Iraq war that he felt was hugely relevant to the standoff in Iran.
‘We didn’t realise, nor did anyone else,’ Bush said, ‘that Saddam Hussein felt like he needed to play like he had weapons of mass destruction. It may have been, however, that in his mind all this was just a bluff … that the world wasn’t serious.’
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Historians who haven’t been born yet will judge “W” as one of the top ten U.S. Presidents…
Carter will be last on the list…due to the fact that every major problem the U.S. faces today has it’s roots in his administration…
Think about it.
June 15th, 2008 at 10:46 pmRevisionists like Buchanon will screw it up royally and sell the public a bill of goods. It’ll take a Woods or a VDH to get things right.
Cicero would spit on most of the so-called “historians” of today.
June 16th, 2008 at 4:12 ammike…. i have thought about it and concur with u… that is when inflation went bonkers, iran went bonkers, saddam went bonkers, panama went bonkers, n. korea toooooooooooooooooo..
June 16th, 2008 at 4:33 amG.N. will look into his crystal ball and make a prediction.
Just like Harry Truman and your parents after you went to college, ten years hence Bush will magically appear much wiser than his current crop of critics wish to believe.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:25 amnot so sure about carter being at the bottom of the list, i think fdr’s gonna give him a run for that spot.
June 16th, 2008 at 5:32 amas for Pres. Bush, yep, definitely gonna be at the top of the list of best presidents
June 16th, 2008 at 5:35 amFDR has been historically cast as one of the greatest Presidents of all-time. Unfortunatelly, nobody actually studies history any more. If they did, they’d realize that he was one of the worst. His policies prolonged the Depression. But, hey, he did give “living room” chats.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:26 amPres. Bush did more to protect this country from further attacks than even history will give him credit for. Don’t always agree with him but respect him as a man who had a difficult job and did it better than most other would have. I believe whole heartedly all he did he did for love of this country. Mistakes.. yes.. but so much we did not know there were going to be mistakes and missteps. This admin. was wise enough to learn from theirs and move forward.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:28 amI agree completely. Bush will be considered one of the top 10 and he deserves that much respect. See the thing is that some people will never understand, even these little punks who hate the President right now will grow up and feel the same way, alot of others will change their mind though.
how can you deny someone respect after freeing 50 million people? and despite the fact that i still believe those weapons exist, i dont even care why we went in. article 1441 said it all in Iraq, disarm or face serious consequences.
and we have not been hit again this country and you know AQ and lots of other groups have tried. maybe one day we’ll hear about those stories.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:28 amA man of honor and principle. We were lucky to have him as president during such a dangerous and crucial time in our nations history. The positive effects of what he has done will be felt for generations.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:49 amAnd that, ladies and gents, is what you get when you have a president focused on doing the right thing, which isn’t exactly a popularity contest. I’m gonna miss this guy, if for no other reason than that he bared the prejudices of the media, and the left, and the brain-dead eurodrones for all to see.
Too bad that most people failed to notice.
June 16th, 2008 at 6:54 amLet’s not forget he also was the reason we now have a bunch of lazy Americans whom feel they are entitled to something for nothing, while the rest of us work to achieve what we want. FDR in my book was the worst ever!!
June 16th, 2008 at 6:55 amLet’s not forget he also was the reason we now have a bunch of lazy Americans whom feel they are entitled to something for nothing, while the rest of us work to achieve what we want. FDR in my book was the worst ever!!
GW will be viewed as a visionary in history.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:02 amTy: As my mother who is 87 and was a nurse in WWII says about Roosevelt, he socialized this country. Since I wasn’t even close to being around, I will take her word for it.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:08 amSo true Mike. The decline in American intel brought on by Carter’s ass backwards view of the CIA coupled with the decline of our military during Carter and the current lack of domestic oil production which was also born from Carter. What a sad sack of crap that man continues to be on this nation.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:09 amAlso, maybe it’s just me, but I do get ass tired of the “Bush’s poll ratings take a dive.” His poll ratings have been at historic (according to the MSM) lows now for about 5 years. Nobody ever talks about Congress’ historic lows of about 13%. As McCain said, Congress’ polls are so low it’s just family and staff that have a favorable rating for them.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:10 amBush overall in protecting the nation is good. Maybe an A-/B+. But what brings him down is leaving the borders open. That is inexcusable. Grade F. IMHO.
June 16th, 2008 at 7:58 amMost people think that GW should have had a better clue in the beginning of the Iraq war but weather it was planned or not if we had done the opposite and had clamped down on the security at that time I think that the bad guys would only have hidden and then come out to play right now ruining the peace at a very crucial point in our POTUS selection process. So I think, as messy as it was, it worked out for the best as is.
June 16th, 2008 at 8:50 amGood job GW.