The Path of More Resistance
BARNES, FRED
The Path of More Resistance Avoiding war with Iraq would have been the safer course for Bush. BY FRED BARNES The cynical view of President Bush is that he exploited the terrorist attacks on...
...Rather than allies' encouraging Bush, it's been his task to buck them up when they've grown weary in warding off opposition at home...
...Maybe so, but Bush has chosen to take risks...
...Certainly Daschle and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic presidential candidates act as though they believe it...
...Bush's political situation would no doubt be better today if he hadn't taken on Iraq, assuming Saddam hadn't used any of those weapons of mass destruction he claims he doesn't have...
...All is hardly lost...
...The vote by Turkey not to join the war, the opposition of France, Russia, and Germany, the troubles at the U.N.—all have shown the president as less than dominant...
...This seems to have assuaged few of his critics...
...With Bush, it took 18 months to disappear, and it's likely to return when war with Iraq begins...
...Backing for war and regime change increased...
...With two of the top five al Qaeda operatives captured or dead and Osama bin Laden possibly cornered and with no further terrorist attacks on American soil, "Bush's poll numbers would be sky high," insists a presidential adviser...
...A few days earlier, while addressing a group of health care experts on Medicare reform, the president devoted the first 15 minutes to talking about Iraq...
...In fact, not much has been lost...
...The latest Gallup Poll showed approval of his performance dipped from 63 percent to 57 percent over the past two months...
...This brings Bush roughly back to where he was prior to September 11...
...Bush loathes press conferences, but he did well enough on March 6 that he changed public opinion...
...The Fred Barnes is executive editor of THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...The long road to war has created uncertainty about the future, and this is partly responsible for the weak economic recovery...
...And not only have Bush's political opponents been emboldened, an antiwar movement has had time to mobilize, though less effectively in America than in Europe...
...Since then, the president hasn't flinched...
...It's true that Bush is stronger politically for having national security and not domestic issues as the focus of the nation's attention...
...Bush has lost some ground politically, but he's not in freefall...
...Their criticism of Bush has become frequent and harsh...
...Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, among others, says so...
...And the number of people who think the economy is in poor shape has nearly doubled (from 16 percent to 32 percent) over the past year...
...Every report from the White House is that he's as firm as ever in his belief that Saddam must go and that Bush himself must make sure it happens...
...Many Democrats, including Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, believe this...
...In their defense, neither Powell nor Bush could have known that France's opposition to serious Iraqi disarmament or regime change would be so hostile and implacable...
...Bush hasn't panicked...
...The entire U.N...
...Let's not exaggerate...
...He's allowed his schedule to be preoccupied by Iraq...
...At least Blair's support has been equally implacable...
...The weary include his two closest allies, Blair and Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar...
...The good news for Bush is that he still has considerable clout with the American public...
...I suspect that is Bush's sentiment exactly...
...Only 36 percent of Americans now say things are getting better in America, down from 46 percent in December...
...Rebuffs by allies and the U.N...
...If you're not winning, you look vulnerable," Ornstein says...
...It's not the other way around—Bush taking the country to war to build political capital...
...There's something to this...
...rally-around-the-president phenomenon usually vanishes in seven or eight months...
...The president would be concentrating on a limited war on terrorism, aimed at al Qaeda...
...Most striking of all, he's been willing to go to the U.N...
...Because Blair wants a new resolution declaring Saddam still in noncompliance with U.N...
...They're encouraged by polls...
...Six months of diplomacy at the United Nations Security Council, with no war resolution in sight, has taken a toll...
...and linger there to prove he's made every effort to avoid war...
...But lose or hit a roadblock, and the opposite occurs...
...Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute has a theory that winners win...
...It was Secretary of State Colin Powell's idea, but Bush made the decision...
...BY FRED BARNES The cynical view of President Bush is that he exploited the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, for political gain and now is ardently pursuing war with Iraq for the same reason...
...offensive now looks like a mistake, but an understandable one...
...He's using his political capital to take a reluctant nation to war," says a White House official...
...But there's a political downside in the prolonged prelude to war, and the president is beginning to experience it...
...That sounds tautological, but it means that winners create confidence in their ability to keep winning and thus improve their chances of doing just that...
...That Bush has persisted on Iraq in the face of sinking polls, diplomatic setbacks, and rising criticism argues against the cynical view...
...make Bush look less formidable...
...Thomas DeFrank of the New York Daily News reported last week that Bush told friends nearly a year ago that he'd concluded Saddam Hussein must be deposed...
...orders to disarm, Bush has gone along, even to the point of lobbying leaders of small, insignificant countries with Security Council seats, but with no stake in liberating Iraq or winning the war on terrorism...
...He looks not impotent but weaker...
...He cancelled a luncheon with members of Congress last week to talk on the phone to British prime minister Tony Blair, who's nervous about losing support in Parliament...
...and start fighting...
...Better yet, the jump was exceeded by the national desire (up 15 percentage points in a Fox news survey) to stop dithering at the U.N...
Vol. 8 • March 2003 • No. 27
