A Legacy of Failure

David Frum (“Think Again: Bush’s Legacy,” September/October 2008) makes some good points, but most of the arguments in his essay are unproven or only manage to defend George W. Bush by implicitly indicting the U.S. foreign policy and security establishment in general.

On Iraq, Frum writes entirely in the future tense: The United States will have achieved this and Iraq’s neighbors will remain that. It is still too early to tell what will happen if the United States withdraws most of its troops. What we do know is that the invasion of Iraq failed to meet all the grandiose promises held out by advocates, including Frum, from Israeli-Palestinian peace to the democratization of Iran and Syria.

On terrorism, Frum rightly points out that there have been no new attacks on the United States. But the reason may well be that, given moderately successful defensive security measures, such attacks were never going to materialize. Perhaps the 9/11 attacks were in fact an evilly brilliant one-off, which did not require or justify the radical recasting of U.S. strategy — let alone the invasion of Iraq.

What we do know is the following: that tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died from civil war and terrorism in the wake of the American invasion; that terrorism and extremism are rising in the vital country of Pakistan; and that the chief planners of 9/11, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, are still free to plan attacks.

Furthermore, what is the "alliance" with India really worth, given India’s opposition to U.S. strategy on a range of issues including links with Iran? How valuable is the "alliance" with Europe, given the lack of real European military help in Afghanistan? What have the United States and Europe together been able to do to stop Iran’s nuclear program? What has become of the Bush administration’s strategy toward Russia, given the combination of recklessly encouraging Georgia and failing to defend that country? What has become of the "road map" to Middle East peace? The fact that these questions are not being forcefully asked in the United States is not a defense of the Bush administration. It is, once again, an indictment of the American media and political establishment as a whole.

–Anatol Lieven
Professor, King’s College London
Senior Fellow, New America Foundation
London, England

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The foreign-policy course of the Bush administration will long be remembered, but any nostalgia will likely be for opportunities lost rather than taken. Even Frum has a hard time selling the notion of a positive Bush foreign-policy legacy. Frum argues that closer ties to India, a pragmatic relationship with China, and pressure on Iran will pay dividends for years to come. Frum’s metaphor suggests that Bush has “invested” his foreign-policy capital, implying that even though these don’t seem like major gains now, they will be in the future.

In the case of China, it’s hard to argue with the pursuit of a pragmatic relationship. Has this been a big investment or simply a recognition of China’s role as the United States’ second largest creditor? With respect to Iran, the administration invested little diplomatic capital, leaving the tough negotiating to its European colleagues. More important, the policy hasn’t worked.

On India, however, Bush made a big and unnecessary gamble. Like the financial sector that relied on the continuation of the housing bubble, President Bush’s big concessions to India have been predicated on a few hopes — and prayers — that India would reorient its foreign policy toward the United States and provide a strategic counterweight against China. In return, India achieved legitimacy as a nuclear power. And it doesn’t hurt that India, with the trade ban lifted, will now be able to run its nuclear power reactors on foreign uranium, freeing up what had been a limited domestic supply for weapons.

No one really believes there will be nonproliferation dividends from this deal. But the gamble may provoke more runs on the bank.

–Sharon Squassoni
Senior Associate
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Washington, D.C.

On geopolitical grounds, Frum’s assessments are highly questionable. Although he concedes that the war in Iraq has defined Bush’s presidency, Frum overlooks the critical human toll of the war on Iraq: citizens forced to move from their homes and become refugees in their own country and beyond it. The humanitarian crisis in Iraq is no mere detail. Displaced populations are fertile breeding pools for despair and terrorism. They can trigger conflict for the seizure of land and ethnic cleansing. And they can shape the geopolitical interests of neighboring countries.

Regarding Latin America, Frum makes the cryptic suggestion that Bush has given Hugo Chávez "enough rope to hang himself." That could not be further from the truth. Aside from reports that the United States actively intervened in 2002 to depose Chávez, the Bush administration has been quite active in supporting the Venezuelan president’s nemesis, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, in militarizing the drug issue and, in the process, polarizing South American countries along obsolete Cold War lines. Certainly, Washington has been successful in alienating several countries to its south.

Finally, Frum mentions that, because the United States has not suffered a major terrorist attack since 2001, one must infer that Washington’s policies have made Americans safer. Of course, one cannot quarrel with events that have not happened. But one could venture that Osama bin Laden has no reason now to expose himself and expend massive resources when he already accomplished exactly what he wanted: billions of U.S. dollars spent launching wars, the total neglect of American infrastructure, and the loss of business from thousands of tourists who are wary of staying in line for hours dealing with airport personnel. Decay and bankruptcy are what he sought, and fear is what he wanted to instill.

Can anyone doubt that he succeeded?

–Laura Garcès
Independent Researcher
Washington, D.C.

David Frum replies:

Anatol Lieven and Sharon Squassoni are certainly correct that some of my defense of the Bush foreign-policy record is conditional. Much will depend on future events: whether Iraq continues toward peace and whether the U.S.-India relationship matures into a true partnership. At the same time, many of their criticisms are conditional as well. The assumption that further terrorist attacks could have been prevented with “moderately successful defensive security measures” or that the Indian policy will generate “runs on the bank” are far from guaranteed outcomes, for example.

Much of the harshest criticism of the Bush presidency has already been debunked by events. The tone of this criticism has often been hyperpartisan and overstated far beyond any reasonable interpretation of the facts.

Laura Garcès’s letter is a perfect example of this tendency. There has indeed been a terrible human toll in Iraq. That toll has been the work of the terrorists and insurgents who have made war on their fellow Iraqis with brutal disregard for human life. The suffering of civilians is the work of those who purposefully attacked them, not those who tried with imperfect success to protect them.