Bush I vs. Bush II

...There are huge stakes in which view of Iraq prevails...

...Wilson supported the 1991 war against Iraq and vehemently opposed the war against Iraq in 2003...

...sanctions...

...There's the anonymous "senior administration official" who on September 28 in the Washington Post, fingered two "top White House officials" as shopping the status of Wilson's wife to "at least six" Washington journalists...

...is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another...

...It argues that Islamism thrives on the chronic inability of the Islamic world to separate religion from politics...

...Because Bush II has overthrown Saddam Hussein, and the threat that necessitated the U.S...

...It formed and led a U.N...

...coalition to eject Saddam Hussein from Kuwait...

...And now even some current Bush appointees have joined forces with Wilson and his Bush I colleagues...

...speech by Secretary of State Colin Powell...

...BY JEFFREY BELL JOSEPH WILSON, the retired ambassador who wants to see top Bush aide Karl Rove "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs" for allegedly "outing" his CIA-agent wife, wants us to know it's nothing personal against the Bush family...

...is the quickest way to terminate such Bush II efforts and dilute blame for the mess that is the likeliest outcome of what they see as Bush II's misconceived invasion of Iraq...

...When Bush I sensed that Bush II was determined to overthrow Saddam, James Baker, Colin Powell, and other key Bush I figures convinced Bush II to do this only after obtaining a new U.N...

...Bush II successfully did so, then attempted for nearly six months to persuade the Security Council to enforce its own new and unanimous resolution...

...Because Bush I decided not to overthrow Saddam at the end of that war...

...This is why the Bush II vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace is firmly linked to post-Arafat democratic reforms by the Palestinian Authority...

...It believes many of our problems in the Islamic world relate to our support for Israel...

...The Bush II view of the world is that 9/11 ignited a world war between the United States and a radical political offshoot of Islamic fundamentalism, often called Islamism...

...This is not meant to imply that Bush I has a vested interest in everything going badly in Iraq...

...Because "several administration officials" also present believed that Libby, far from acting "over the top," was merely supplying "the broadest range of options" for inclusion in Powell's speech...

...When Saddam showed recalcitrance, Bush I helped enact U.N...

...The elephantine effort that went into producing this journalistic mouse is intimately related to the controversy over the outing of Ambassador Wilson's wife...

...Bush I does not like Yasser Arafat, but believes the United States and Israel have no choice but to try to strike a deal with him...

...The next day's Post brought forth a very long front-page article titled, "Iraq, 9/11 Still Linked by Cheney," mainly a rehash of the pros and cons of whether a sighting in prague of 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta could be confirmed...

...Bush II also has a political strategy, based on its analysis of the enemy...

...Islamists have already proven their willingness to murder vast numbers of American noncom-batants, which makes their connection, or potential connection, with anti-American rogue states a special danger...

...But if the clock is ticking on Bush II's efforts to bring democratic reform to Iraq, it is ticking even faster on the Bush I worldview...

...resolution it was acting under did not provide for this...

...support for Israel...

...It will be remembered as the administration that left Saddam Hussein in power, inadvertently leading to a chain of events culminating in 9/11 and a far-flung world war...

...But the more dominant reason is Bush I's belief that the attempted democratization of Iraq is an exercise in futility, and that turning things over to the U.N...

...Among these is the historical legacy of Bush I no less than of Bush II...

...Deeply anti-American rogue states, including non-Islamist ones like Saddam's Iraq and North Korea, logically become an important target of American war strategy...

...If a peaceful, democratic outcome in Iraq continues to look doubtful, Bush I will inevitably, as a corollary of its opposition to preemption and regime change, elevate Bush II's invasion of Iraq into one of the two biggest U.S...

...Why "other officials," you might ask...

...What was new in the article were a number of anonymous allegations by "senior and mid-level administration officials" implying the vice president and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, were obsessed with linking Iraq and 9/11...

...It has a micro, not a macro, interpretation of what happened on 9/11...

...When it would not, the United States and Britain went to war...

...At one point, the Post describes Libby as "over the top," attributing this opinion to "other officials present" at a meeting called to discuss the draft of a U.N...

...Partly, this reflects the desire of Bush I to limit American casualties...

...This is the best explanation for the accelerated urgency of the effort by Bush I loyalists within the current administration to discredit Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, the two most powerful advocates other than the president of the Bush II worldview...

...There is one path, even after what it sees as the error of the Bush II invasion and overthrow of Saddam, to a reasonably bright future for Iraq...

...Who carried out the mass murders of 9/11...

...Hence the importance of U.S...

...It therefore believes that, even more than economic growth, the establishment of constitutional democracy in Islamic countries provides a reasonable hope of ending or at least eroding the political base of violent Islamism...

...problems in the Islamic world, the other being U.S...

...As secretary of defense, Dick Cheney acquiesced in the first decision, then switched to the side of regime change in Bush II...

...Why have they been withdrawn now, removing a major grievance/rallying point of Islamists and Wahhabis...

...It believes unrest in the kingdom can be alleviated by internal economic reforms and by U.S...

...At every stage of the now 13-year-old American debate on Iraq, Bush I has favored United Nations involvement as the centerpiece of U.S...

...When violence and unrest in Iraq flared up in the aftermath of the invasion, Powell convinced Bush II to return to the U.N...

...While it does not oppose attempts to achieve democratic reforms in Islamic countries, it has little hope that this will be much of a factor in the immediate decades ahead...

...When and why were they brought there...

...policy toward Iraq...

...That is U.N...

...Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi sect of Islam...

...involvement...

...The presence of U.S...

...It refrained from overthrowing him in part because the U.N...

...In 1990, to protect Saudi Arabia against possible invasion by the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq...

...This is the link between Saddam's rule and 9/11 that can never be denied or discredited...

...resolution...

...What is the main geographic and cultural base of this movement...

...If the Bush II view of the world is vindicated, in other words, Bush I will no longer be the administration remembered primarily for decisively winning the Persian Gulf War...

...What was the main rallying point of this movement...

...There is an alternative Bush I view that is now engaged in a death struggle with Bush II...

...for help, both military and financial, as well as a new resolution...

...Bush I retains a generally benign view of the Saudi monarchy...

...The Sunni wing of Islamism, led by Osama bin Laden...

...in the future of Iraq, awarding it the lead role if possible...

...Colin Powell is the constant in the two Bush administrations, opposed to overthrowing Saddam Hussein in both eras...

...In the Islamic world, Bush I favors economic development through trade and internal, top-down reforms...

...It mildly supported the invasion of Afghanistan, but would favor no other significant military actions, backing mainly police actions geared toward catching Osama and other al Qaeda figures...

...He told a C-spAN interviewer last week of his warm relationship with former president Bush, who once described Wilson as a "truly inspiring" and "courageous" diplomat for his role in extracting potential American hostages from Baghdad in 1991...

...The Bush I and Bush II views of the world, always at odds, have reached their inevitable point of maximum conflict, which is their view of regime change in Iraq and its relationship to the rest of global politics...

...support for a revived peace process with Yasser Arafat...

...Despite the limited success, once again, of this latest effort, it is predictable that as long as Bush I elements remain active in Bush II, there will be new attempts to conciliate and involve the U.N...

...It sees Osama and Islamism as limited and aberrational...

...From either viewpoint, Bush I or Bush II, Cheney is the pivotal figure...

...presence in Saudi Arabia no longer exists...

...troops in Saudi Arabia...

...A convert and hero in the Bush II view of Iraq and the world, the vice president is the great betrayer in the Bush I view, which explains the rage so many Bush I adherents feel toward him, as well as the elaborate effort to discredit him and his top aides and allies...

...The venom of this senior official was such that the Washington Post reporter who received the disclosure felt compelled to write, "It Jeffrey Bell is a principal of Capital City Partners, a Washington consulting firm...

...He joked to an interviewer that an updated version of his obituary should read, "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Bush I administration political appointee who did the most damage to the Bush II administration . . ." Wilson is far from unique among Bush I appointees willing to damage Bush II...

...efforts to foster liberal democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as encourage democratic reforms among friendly Islamic governments ranging from Indonesia to Morocco...

...Why were they still there 10 years after the first Iraq war...

...There are also backward-looking implications of the Bush II view of the world, and of the world war Bush II believes we are in...

...The acts of terrorism and armed resistance in post-invasion Iraq have revived the core Bush I belief that leaving Saddam in power in 1991 was the right thing to do...