Cut to Size

10^th November 2006
The Malta Independent - Friday Wisdom

This week US President George W Bush was cut to size by the electorate who gave a very hard drumming to his Republican Party in the mid-term elections, causing a very significant switch of power outside the White House. The Democratic Party now controls both the House and the Senate on Capitol Hill.

This is a belated wake-up call by the American public who in fact never elected Mr Bush in 2000 and by all evidence he had snatched victory from Democratic Presidential candidate Al Gore only because the US Supreme Court did not allow sufficient time for a detailed recount of the Florida vote. On a national basis President Bush had in fact obtained less votes than Mr Gore. On both moral and legal grounds based on facts that subsequently emerged, Gore rather than Bush, should have become the 43^rd President of the US.

One could ask whether the re-election of Mr Bush in 2004 legitimised his original dubious election. Given the facts of this week my view is that it has not. In 2004 Bush was re-elected on the platform of his being a war President. He postured himself as being against national interest to change the Commander in Chief when the country was at War in Iraq and elsewhere in the famous cliché of War against Terror.

The deep sense of US patriotism worked in Bush’s favour and the American public continued to endorse their Commander in Chief. They were impressed that changing him would be interpreted as admitting defeat in the War against Terror.

But this week the same platform that re-elected the President in 2004 brought his Party’s downfall in a major shift of US political fortunes. The American people clearly have had enough with the deception that is going on Iraq and they sent a clear message that they want an honourable and programmed exit out of that theatre of war.

The US electorate voted in much higher turnout than is the norm for mid-term elections re-enforcing the clarity of the message for change. The electorate’s nervousness over the situation in Iraq can be appreciated better if examined in the context of a very strong performance of the US economy since Mr Bush re-election in 2004.

Normally domestic economic issues, which are the main contributor to general feel good factor, over-ride any considerations related to international relations. In fact President Clinton for his election in 1992 had coined the term ‘ it’s the economy, stupid’ meaning that the electorate is more concerned about economic issues that effect their standard of living rather than to celebrate President Bush Sr. ( the 41^st President) success in the first Gulf war.

This time the ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ syndrome has not worked. The feel good factor generated by above average economic growth was largely eclipsed by concern about the heavy casualties being suffered in Iraq against a background of lack of progress in moving the country towards anything resembling a working democracy.

More US military personnel have now died in Iraq than the number of casualties suffered by the Twin Tower terrorist attack of 2001. Yet Iraq remains a jungle of sectarian interests where each section imposes its views through the use of unlawful militia or underground terrorists. Every day tens and hundreds of Iraqis are killed in such sectarian warfare with the weak central government unable to take effective control of the country in spite of the support of coalition forces.

The electorate felt that the fight for peace in Iraq has become unwinnable and the expectation that a truly democratic Iraq could become a beacon for the spread of democracy in the whole middle east was an unrealisable pipedream. The US situation in Iraq has become a sure loss whatever they do. They lose if they stay and they lose if the leave, given that the country could easily fall into civil war breeding a new wave of international terrorists and increasing the influence of Iran in the region sufficiently to bring into question the stability of oil exports even from nearby Saudi Arabia.

The electorate finally realised that it has been deceived into electing a War President who waged war on false pretext and who celebrated mission accomplished when the real war of bringing order in an occupied Iraq had not even started and as it turned out was either very badly planned or not planned at all.

President Bush seems to have heeded the message enough to engineer the resignation of Defence Secretary Rumsfeld within a few hours of the election result. Rumsfeld was untouchable just a few days before. This is a good start for achieving bi-partisan support for adopting new perspectives regarding Iraq. It is not enough. If Bush means to work with a Democratic Congress he needs to do more. If Vice-President Cheney, the prime promoter of the Iraq adventure, cannot be made to go, he must be sidelined.