Thankfully, Bush’s days in the White House are winding down, but it seems as if his legacy will impact the landscape of American foreign and public policy long after he is gone. If it were up to him, his name would appear in the textbooks of the great nation to the south forever tied to his self-annointed persona as a “war president.”
He has cultivated this legacy throughout his eight years as president by launching the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to combat autocratic rule. These conflicts were necessary, Bush has said, because autocratic states not only cause instability to their respective societies but they are havens for terrorists, who can take advantage of both the protection offered by despotic leaders and the general lawlessness at the fringes of society, to recruit, train, and plan devastating attacks against Western targets, with impunity.
Under this rationale, Bush started his War on Terror in the Middle East to secure American safety and American interests abroad. He also threw in the whole “bringing democracy to the oppressed people” aspect in order to make a potentially long, expensive, and dangerous set of wars more palatable to the American public. With the sudden shock of 9/11, Bush embarked on an ambitious and violent program of eradicating terrorism from the face of the earth and bringing democracy to every corner of the globe.
But with rising death tolls in Afghanistan, and especially in Iraq, and with no end in sight, the honourable moniker of a “war president” now must certainly take on negative connotations. Given the dismal results of his supposedly necessary wars, Bush must be seen as more of a “war-mongering president.” With his current approval rating at an all-time low of 20 per cent, the lowest of any president in American history, we can safely consider him a “failed president” in the court of public opinion. The only way he can shed this title with the 10 months he has left in office is to create a resounding success in either the domestic or foreign policy sphere, which will not only boost his public ratings but revive his status as a “successful war president,” by the time he leaves office.
This is where Iran comes in. Bush is in the Middle East now, attempting to build another coalition of the willing with Sunni Arab allies, for a probable pre-emptive strike against Iran. Bush’s harsh stance against Iran faces growing skepticism from Gulf Arab states, which are currently extending diplomatic relations to the Shi‘ite country. Bush’s accusations that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons program have fizzled out. Iran recently declared all its previous nuclear activities to the International Atomic Energy Agency and as American intelligence found, Iran suspended its military nuclear projects in 2003.
Iran’s increasing importance to Bush can even be seen at home. A mere three hours after Nicholas Burns, the State Department official in charge of Iran policy, resigned, Bush appointed William Burns to the position. William Burns, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, is loyal to Bush’s cause and many think will cooperate with the administration’s pushes for harsher anti-nuclear sanctions on Iran.
However, with the American elections looming, it is unlikely Bush will embroil America in another long and expensive military operation. For now, he is verbally locking horns with Iran, hoping the “enraged” Iranian bull will spend its energy and eventually back down, exhausted by the rhetoric and diplomatic might of the U.S. Bush is hoping to salvage whatever legacy he has left as a “war president” through his dealings with Iran. It’s a good thing he doesn’t have more time in office, otherwise he might have tried the same thing with North Korea, the only remaining member of the Axis of Evil club he hasn’t said he’s prepared to invade.
