| As he leaves the White House at the end of his second term, the President has a poll rating of only 23 per cent, and is widely disliked and even despised. His foreign policy has been judged a failure, especially in view of the long, painful, costly war that he declared, which is still not over. He doesn’t get on with his own party’s presidential candidate, who is clearly distancing himself, and had lost many of his closest friends and staff to scandals and forced resignations. The New Republic, a hugely influential political magazine, writes that his historical reputation will be as bad as that of President Harding, the disastrous president of the Great Depression. |
| – Blaðamaðurinn Andrew Roberts skrifar um einn óvinsælasta forseta Bandaríkjanna. |
K 
ætast nú margir, víða um heim. Vinstrimenn og raunar margir fleiri, sem hafa sannfært sig og aðra um að núverandi forseti Bandaríkjanna sé allt í senn, stríðsóður, einfeldningur, hálfviti og útsmoginn þrjótur, fagna í dag þegar hann lætur af embætti. Og til að kóróna umskiptin tekur eftirlæti fjölmiðlamanna við, maður sem er ekki aðeins mælskur og frísklegur heldur gefur mönnum auk þess færi á að auglýsa víðsýni sína og framsækni með því einu að styðja sig. En enginn veit enn hvernig Barack Obama mun reynast sem forseti. Og þeir, sem í dag telja sig vita með vissu hvernig sanngjörn saga mun í framtíðinni dæma forsetatíð George W. Bush, mega minnast þess að hennar dómar verða stundum óvæntir þeim sem hæst hafa talað.
Einn ótal ótal fjölmiðla sem hafa látið George Bush heyra það á undanförnum árum, er tímaritið Prospect, sem birtir iðulega hnýsilegar greinar um ýmis málefni. Á síðasta ári bar það hins vegar við, að hinn margníddi forseti prýddi forsíðu þess, en aldrei þessu vant var komin fyrirsögnin „Hafði hann eftir allt saman rétt fyrir sér?“. Fjallaði blaðamaðurinn og rithöfundurinn Edward Luttwak þar um framgöngu Bush í utanríkismálum og komst að þeirri niðurstöðu að árangur hans væri stórkostlega vanmetinn. Árangur hans gegn hinu herskáa íslam sem hafi áður verið gríðarlega áhrifamikið í Mið-Austurlöndum sé til dæmis gríðarlegur; mun meiri en menn geri sér almennt grein fyrir á Vesturlöndum. Áður hafi herská samtök íslamista, al Qaeda og önnur, notið verulegs stuðnings um allan hinn múslímska heim, og velvildar og stuðnings yfirvalda í ótal ríkjum. Allt þetta hafi breyst eftir viðbrögð Bush við árásunum á Bandaríkin hinn ellefta september 2001. Og ekki af þeim ástæðum sem upplýstir og lærðir Vesturlandabúar myndu reikna með.
| All this came to an abrupt end after 9/11. Sophisticates everywhere ridiculed the uncompromising Bush stance, “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” as a cowboy stunt, but it was swiftly successful. Governments across the Muslim world quickly changed their conduct. Some moved energetically to close down local jihadist groups they had long tolerated, to silence extremist preachers and to keep out foreign jihadis they had previously welcomed. Others were initially in denial. … Denial did not last. As they saw American special forces and long-range bombers smashing the Taliban, the Saudis began to admit responsibility for having spread extremism through the thousands of schools and academies they financed at home and abroad. An agonising reappraisal of their own Wahhabi form of Islam continues. The Saudi king has convened an inter-faith conference of Muslims, Christians and Jewsa huge step given the Wahhabi prohibitions of any form of amity with non-Muslims. Inside the kingdom, only less extreme preachers now receive public support. Bin Laden had been the Saudis’ enemy for years, but it was only after 9/11 that they began actively to hunt down his supporters and made their first moves to discourage rich Saudis from sending money to jihadists abroad. More than a thousand Saudis have been arrested, dozens have been killed while resisting arrest, and Saudi banks must now check if wire transfers are being sent to Muslim organisations on the terrorist list. In different ways, other governments in Muslim countries all the way to Indonesia also took their stand with Bush and the US against the jihadists, even though jihad against the infidel is widely regarded as an Islamic duty. Suddenly, active Islamists and violent jihadists suffered a catastrophic loss of status. Instead of being admired, respected or at least tolerated, they had to hide, flee or give it up. Numbers started to shrink. The number of terrorist incidents outside the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq keeps going down, while madrassas almost everywhere have preferred toning down their teachings to being shut down. In Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, the dominant association of imams condemns all forms of violence without exception. … |
Annað sem Luttwak vekur athygli á, er árangur Bush við að halda aftur af þeim ríkjum sem áður unnu að því að koma sér upp kjarnorkuvopnum.
| Bush’s detractors must also contend with another great success: denuclearisation. It started with Libya, which in 2003, in fear of what Bush might do, surrendered all the equipment it had bought to make nuclear weapons. Then there is Syria, which lost its secret proto-nuclear reactor to a strike by the Israeli air force last Septembera move made with Bush’s approval. The demolition of North Korea’s nuclear programme has finally started. It may continue to full denuclearisation if Bush’s successor keeps up the pressure. And most recently, the direct engagement of the US with Iran’s nuclear programme has started. As usual, European diplomacy failed completely. While the E-3Britain, France, Germanycontinued to talk, the Iranians continued to build, and later publicly boasted that they had tricked the Europeans. Now matters are coming to a close. Bush has sent his own trusted envoy to offer generous incentives to the Iranians to stop enriching uranium and demolish a few installations. That is exactly what the E-3 offered. The difference is that there was no Bush involved, hence no credibility to the implied “or else.” |
Það eru ótal svið þar sem álitsgjafar Vesturlanda hafa lítið álit á George Bush. Ekki er vafi á því að fjölmargir landa þeirra taki undir mörg stóryrðin. Það þarf nú samt ekki að vera svo, að sagan muni dæma forsetatíð Bush með sama hætti og samtíðin á svo auðvelt með. Og auðvitað má gagnrýna hann fyrir margt, eins og alla forseta Bandaríkjanna. Hann hefur til dæmis verið allt of viljugur að láta eftir óskum um aukin ríkisútgjöld, en í valdatíð hans jukust þau með ótrúlegum hætti. Þá beitti hann, með eindregnum stuðningi demókrata, fyrir stórfelldum aðgerðum á kostnað skattgreiðenda til að reyna að bjarga fjármálafyrirtækjum út úr þeirri heimskeppu sem nú leggur aldagamla og, að því er allir héldu, firnasterka banka að velli um allan heim.
En Bush er auðvitað ekki einn um að láta af embætti í mótbyr. „As he leaves the White House at the end of his second term, the President has a poll rating of only 23 per cent, and is widely disliked and even despised“, skrifaði kunnur blaðamaður og vitnað var til hér í upphafi. Sá forseti sem hann fjallaði þar um var vitaskuld Harry Truman. Sem er frá leið hefur fengið allt aðra dóma en þennan.