Special report: George Bush's America
by Martin Woollacott of The
Guardian
(No story critical of Bush can be written on US soil.
That's how Uncle Dick and Karl have commanded it.
That's why dissent must come from overseas.)
It is pleasing to think that the world can turn on the pivot of a single
Yankee conscience, that one principled man can occasionally make all
the
difference. Everybody agrees that James Jeffords' decision is of huge
importance. And yet, now that it has happened, it is clear that if
it
had not been Senator Jeffords, somebody or something else would have
turned up to check the Bush presidency.
The picture we had of that presidency was of an administration
arrogantly exceeding its mandate and getting away with it. The reality,
however, was of a group of men hoping to push one or two of their big
policy ideas through in the very short period before they expected
a
familiar American political deadlock to set in.
The window for the Bush administration was not narrow because of
Jeffords, the possibility of whose rebellion seems to have escaped
party
managers, but because of Strom Thurmond, ancient and ailing, whose
death
would have had the same effect as the Jeffords decision on the balance
in the Senate. The Republicans may have hoped, as they still do, for
a
compensating cross-over or some other turn of events that would enable
them to retain or regain control, but they knew that the odds were
high
that they would lose it.
Even if by good luck the fragile Republican position in the Senate had
been preserved, it was not strong enough to ensure the passage of
seriously controversial bills, and the tax bill Bush did get enacted,
after some concessions, may well prove the one exception to that rule.
It was already clear before Jeffords that drilling in the Alaska reserve
and much of the energy programme would not have got through the Senate.
The fact that 10 or more senators on both sides regularly peel off
to vote
against their parties means that a Senate majority has to be very large
before
it guarantees legislation. The significance of the change in Senate
arithmetic is
not about voting, but about what is voted on. Democratic chairmanships
will
now put the agenda largely in that party's hands.
George Bush and his advisers must have seen this coming. It happened
to
Clinton, with the roles reversed. It happened to Bush Senior, and it
happened to Ronald Reagan after he lost the Senate in 1986. Reagan's
case was particularly abject, since he had had such a commanding
position earlier. The president and his cabinet officers sat and
whistled while the Democrats pushed through bills on civil rights,
labour rights, welfare, health, trade and education. Simultaneous
control of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate
is not normal in American politics. The private response of the Bush
team to the admonition "You can't carry on like this" may well have
been
that they knew that very well but had at least to try to achieve some
momentum before the countervailing forces came into play.
The question now for Americans and all the rest of us for whom the
decisions of the US government are important is what will replace the
attempt to govern by declaration, for declaration is what has mainly
characterised the Bush administration so far. Will they try to achieve
their objectives by stealth and, if they do, can they succeed? Will
they
sulk, or fall out among themselves? It is, after all, annoying when
a
wheel falls off the cart so quickly.
Many suggest that the administration will have to be more centrist.
But
some objectives do not admit of compromise. You either drill in the
Alaska reserve or you do not. You either reject or ruthlessly amend
the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty or you keep it. You either deploy a missile
defence or you do not. You either move militarily into space or you
do not.
You either license a new generation of nuclear power plants or you
do not.
You either tie foreign aid to anti-abortion principles or you do not.
As far as weapons are concerned, compromise of a sort can sometimes
be
found in agreement on research and development, but in most areas that
has
already been pushed about as far as it can go. The Republicans still
have the
House, and they will always have the hope of tipping the balance back
in the
Senate. Mutual sabotage may be a likelier possibility than centrist
cooperation.
When presidents are stymied domestically, they have often found
themselves freer to act in international affairs. While Ronald Reagan
was being bypassed by the Senate in his second term, he was also
responding to Mikhail Gorbachev's overtures and, in his dreamy way,
helping to end the Cold War. George Bush put together a coalition
against Iraq and fought a necessary campaign against that country.
Bill
Clinton wavered and wobbled but eventually intervened with some success
in the Balkans, tried hard in the Middle East, cultivated the Russians,
helped in Ireland and pursued a strong free trade policy.
There are veterans of both the Reagan and earlier Bush periods in office
on
George Bush's team who well remember the successes of those administrations.
Some of them were architects of those successes. The problem for this
administration is that it largely abjured an active foreign policy
in advance.
The distaste for intervention, for the close management of peace processes,
for international action on the environment and for some aspects of
international
economic cooperation was well signalled.
On top of that, the Bush administration managed to behave with a
distinct lack of courtesy toward Russia, a distinct lack of the usual
ambiguity toward China and a distinct lack of consideration toward
Europe very quickly after taking office. A certain amount of fence
mending has already been undertaken, and the US has been forced to
re-engage in the Middle East. But it is difficult to see from where
a
string of foreign successes, compensating for domestic difficulties,
could come. The project of persuading Russia, China, and Europe that
missile defence is a necessary and worthwhile project will now be even
more difficult. Colin Powell was dutifully pushing it earlier this
week
at the Nato meeting in Budapest but he could not get other foreign
ministers to endorse a form of words that opened the door in that direction.
The Bush administration believes in looking after American business
and
in defending quite narrowly defined national interests. It has little
internationalist vision. How can the US lead when it is leadership
itself which this administration finds problematic? When Bush comes
to
Europe this month and next for a round of meetings with European,
Russian and Japanese leaders, he will be under severe pressure. Hampered
at home, he will have less to offer abroad than his predecessors -
since
American help, whether in the form of troops in the Balkans, aid to
Russians dismantling nuclear weapons or diplomatic work between Israelis
and Palestinians, is precisely what the US wants to reduce. Out of
hard
situations sometimes new beginnings are possible. Perhaps the Bush
administration can reinvent itself, but the prospects are not encouraging.