The Problem With An Inarticulate President…
…is not that lack of eloquence means lack of intelligence, but rather that a president who cannot speak well cannot sell well. Now, Iraq was hardly going to be an easy sell (it WAS an easy sell, until the much-expected WMD stockpiles turned out to be a mirage), but President Bush (and this is coming from a supporter) has been a spectacular failure at selling his Iraq policy.
Then again, maybe it’s not all lack of refinement and nuance…Douglas Feth, in today’s Wall Street Journal, argues that Bush lost his focus when the WMDs failed to materialize, and moved the goal posts from “the removal of a threat to U.S. security” to “a stable democracy in Iraq”:
In the fall of 2003, a few months after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, U.S. officials began to despair of finding stockpiles of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The resulting embarrassment caused a radical shift in administration rhetoric about the war in Iraq.
President Bush no longer stressed Saddam’s record or the threats from the Baathist regime as reasons for going to war. Rather, from that point forward, he focused almost exclusively on the larger aim of promoting democracy. This new focus compounded the damage to the president’s credibility that had already been caused by the CIA’s errors on Iraqi WMD. The president was seen as distancing himself from the actual case he had made for removing the Iraqi regime from power.
…[T]he most damaging effect of this communications strategy was that it changed the definition of success. Before the war, administration officials said that success would mean an Iraq that no longer threatened important U.S. interests – that did not support terrorism, aspire to WMD, threaten its neighbors, or conduct mass murder. But from the fall of 2003 on, the president defined success as stable democracy in Iraq.
This was a public affairs decision that has had enormous strategic consequences for American support for the war. The new formula fails to connect the Iraq war directly to U.S. interests. It causes many Americans to question why we should be investing so much blood and treasure for Iraqis. And many Americans doubt that the new aim is realistic – that stable democracy can be achieved in Iraq in the foreseeable future.
To fight a long war, the president has to ensure he can preserve public and congressional support for the effort. It is not an overstatement to say that the president’s shift in rhetoric nearly cost the U.S. the war. Victory or defeat can hinge on the president’s words as much as on the military plans of his generals or the actions of their troops on the ground.
It is true that the case against Saddam Hussein as a security threat to the United States rested largely on the (presumed) WMDs, so we can’t completely fault Bush for turning from this. But the case could still be made (weaker, to be sure, but still made) by emphasizing his long history of destabilizing the Middle East and defying the resolutions of the Security Council repeatedly (indeed, the latter was perhaps the only strategy that could have preserved a large measure of international support, had there been more patience with the diplomatic efforts).
I agree entirely with the last paragraph excerpted above, however – so much so that I’ll print it again for emphasis:
To fight a long war, the president has to ensure he can preserve public and congressional support for the effort. It is not an overstatement to say that the president’s shift in rhetoric nearly cost the U.S. the war. Victory or defeat can hinge on the president’s words as much as on the military plans of his generals or the actions of their troops on the ground.
The true miracle of the whole thing is that Iraq has improved so dramatically that a positive outcome is still achievable…a tribute to the U.S. military, in my mind, for their adaptability and continued perseverance and hard work…
When you’ve lost Douglas Feith, you’ve pretty much lost everything.
All I can say is “Huh?”
By what measure is Iraq, in May 2008, “improved” over Iraq in May 2005?
I’m speaking of recent improvements as compared to say, January 2007…surely you don’t deny the positive trend, even if we can both agree that things got very bad indeed (and they still aren’t great, or even good – just better than they were at the depth, post-invasion)…
I’m afraid I don’t follow that logic at all.
May 2005 was two full years after “major hostilities” had ended. That seems like a reasonable baseline. If you don’t like May 2005, how about May 2004? Or May 2003?
I you can’t tell me that things are better today than they were three full years ago, then the tens of thousands of lives that were lost, and hundreds of billions of dollars that were spent in the interim were well and truly wasted.
Jacques, I’m not picking an arbitrary start date, one year, two years, three years, or four…I’m saying that the recent trend has been towards improvement, which is remarkable, considering how badly the beginning was bungled, and which I put squarely on the hard work and adaptability of the U.S. military.
I’m not speaking in riddles, I’m making a plain statement…
If you would like concrete statistics backing up my assertion, the latest edition of the Brookings Institute Iraq Index shows improvement on virtually every page over the past 12-14 months…
If you wanna claim credit for the “improvement,” then you have to take the blame for the decline that preceded it.
Why was Iraq, in January 2007 (your cherry-picked “arbitrary start date”) so much worse than in January 2005?
This has nothing to do with “how badly the beginning was bungled.” As I said, May 2005 (my, admittedly, arbitrary start date) was two full years after the beginning.
Well, I’m not sure what argument you are expecting from me…I said the war has bungled badly post-occupation. You agree, I assume?
I then said, remarkably, things have improved dramatically (would it have helped if I had said ‘of late’?), so that despite all the bungling, there are positive trends.
Again, is that so controversial?
As to why January 2007 was worse than two years prior, the answer was the insurgency grew in strength, ultimately from policies pursued in the beginning. Actions have consequences, true? It took a new strategy of more forward bases and community engagement and less hunkering in the green zone to turn that around, and we didn’t really see that blossom until the surge (or if you prefer, until Petraeus began shaping strategy – of course, that’s my opinion, and not everyone will share it). By disbanding the Iraqi Army and pursuing hard-core de-Baathification, we created the sort of underclass of unemployed young men who always are the recruiting ground for extremists – and that decision resulted from bungling in the beginning…
Now, if you want me to make an argument that the war was or wasn’t worth it, in its entirety, I can do that, but that would be a quite different post than the one I made tonight. The point of the one tonight was that George W. Bush, perhaps thrown off by the lack of WMD stockpiles, bungled his messaging, and didn’t sell the war as well as a more articulate president could have…you can judge that (his messaging, that is) regardless of your stance on the war…
By the way, I’ve said on the record on many occasions now that, given what we now know about the lack of WMDs, the invasion was a mistake. That still doesn’t stop me from taking hope and solace in improvements. I supported the war, then, mistakenly, I now believe…but the separate question, and one that I think you and I differ on, is, even if the initial decision to invade was a mistake, should we stay or go? I believe the recent improvements, and the relatively low current casualty level, argue for a continued (though not indefinite) presence.
That’s as honest an answer as I can give…
“Was bungled” in the first sentence above, obviously, rather than has…
Mark – that Bush is inarticulate, demonstrably true btw, is of no consequence to the argument Feith makes. The message, and delivery of the message are two completely different things. What Feith is talking about is Bush’s abandonment of the reasons for going into Iraq in the first place. It is understandable why Bush would want to do so, but inexcusable that he did. I have long made the argument that Bush refused to make: namely that given the intelligence, given the history, given Saddam’s threats and aggressions, and given Bush’s sworn oath as President, he had no choice but to take out Saddam. Speaking articulately has nothing to do with Bush’s failure to properly explain why we went into Iraq. His failure to do this also eroded his ability to explain why we should stay and emboldened and armed his opponents. That, I think, is what Feith is talking about in his piece, and that is Bush’s failure of leadership.
1) The fact that there has been some incremental progress in Iraq does not lead to the conclusion that a “positive outcome” is in the cards. Iraq is a broken country and will remain so for many years to come. The infrastructure has fallen apart, basic services are lacking, over one fifth of the population was forced to relocate, armed militias negotiate with the government for power, and Iran pulls a lot of strings. The fact that the death toll has decreased somewhat is a welcome thing, but there is no way around the simple fact that five years without success equals failure.
2) Bush may be inarticulate — a Republican Congressman recently said that if Bush were reading the Gettysburg Address, it would sound like a supermarket shopping list, and if Obama read a shopping list, it would sound like the Gettysburg Address — but his speech writers aren’t. He had plenty of opportunities to make his case, even if he has a problem making a simple declarative sentence.
3) The main problem I had with Feith’s piece is that he blames the CIA for the decision to invade Iraq. It is disingenuous to write about “the damage to the president’s credibility that had already been caused by the CIA’s errors on Iraqi WMD” when the administration pressured the CIA to deliver the conclusions it wanted. It is also disingenuous to ignore the fact that many around the world — most notably Hans Blix — doubted the existence of WMD. According to Richard Clarke, the Downing Street memo, and other sources, the administration was hellbent on invading Iraq regardless of what the facts were. To suggest that somehow the decisions of the executive branch are the responsibility of the CIA is ludicrous.
Peter, far more people believed that Saddam had WMDs than the reverse – including President Clinton, when he was in office. Did Bush somehow influence the intelligence while he was governor of Texas?….
Mark, I am utterly baffled by your inability to recognize that the reason it’s been hard to sell the Iraq War is not a problem of message but a problem of policy. It was a bad idea and remains a bad idea. Saddam Hussein was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a clear and present danger to the United States. And no amount of rhetoric could or can undo the damage this Administration has done to both the region and American confidence, not to mention the lives it has pointlessly thrown away. Lack of eloquence is not the same as lack of intelligence, but the President has demonstrated all by himself that speaking and thinking are both games he’s not all that good at.
Posed as a yes or no question, Clinton would have answered yes. However, we don’t know whatClinton’s confidence level was in the assessment that Iraq had WMD: 61%, 75%, or 100%. What we do know is that for whatever reason — wisdom, luck, Monica, whatever — he did not act on this intelligence. If you are going to invade another country based on your belief that they possess WMD, you damn well better be right about it. Saying that others were similarly mistaken is no excuse.
Also, I’m with Jacques. Your metrics for “improvement” are laughable. We oust Hussein, stand around idly while the country descends into chaos, then throw together a strategy that leads to increased safety and claim we’re on our way to victory. Even though the country is still worse off than when we started. This is sheer madness, and the cost is human lives.
There was a greater worldwide consensus that Iraq possessed WMD, and that Saddam was planning to use it, than there is a consensus among scientists that global warming is caused by humans. We went in to Bosnia, and are implored to go into Darfur, for lesser reasons.
1) It is questionable whether the consensus among scientists is less than the consensus that Saddam had WMD.
2) Even if this were the case, it is a moot point. If we mistakenly invade another country, multitudes of people die. If we reduce carbon emissions and later learn that the Earth is not warming, then we have caused no harm.
3) Bosnia and Darfur are examples of genocide. Your suggestion is that this is a lesser cause than the mistaken belief that another country had a weapons program?
1. Look it up; the loudest, most prominent, and loneliest voice arguing against the Iraq WMD consensus was Scott Ritter. The number of scientists questioning humans as the cause of global warming (climate change, if you prefer) grows by the day.
2. It can be argued that implementing the carbon reducing actions recommended will negatively impact the global economy resulting in much suffering and death, particularly in the third world.
3. Yes. Genocide outside the borders of the United States is no threat to us and, therefore, not worth the expending of our blood and treasure.
1) There were plenty of people besides Scott Ritter who doubted the existence of WMD: Hans Blix and Joe Wilson being two examples. We also do not know what foreign intelligence services really thought about it. For example, the country which was probably in the best position to know was Israel. We don’t know what they told the administration or, more importantly, what they really thought the likelihood was when they talked among themselves.
2) It depends what the “recommended” actions are and how they are implemented.
3) Genocide outside our borders may be no threat, but in my view this does not mean that it is not worth American blood and treasure (certainly in Bosnia, perhaps in Darfur).
1) What a strange analogy. I mean, it’s weird because the scientists who think climate change isn’t human-caused are universally and obviously cranks, whereas the people who thought Saddam didn’t have WMD were… also pretty much cranks. I’ve read Blix’s book, and he’s just as officious and mealy-mouthed as ever. He was right, of course, but I’ll cede the point that it looked like Hussein had weapons at the time. The real problem, which I should hope is now becoming obvious but really doesn’t seem to be among the Republican dead-enders, is that a real and existing weapons program in Iraq still wasn’t a clear and present danger to the United States. He wasn’t pointing the things at us and couldn’t have reached us even if he wanted. The entire episode was founded on fear-mongering and the ludicrous idea that the United States is entitled to police sovereign countries.
2) A certain segment of Republicans like to make points like this a lot, but come on. These guys don’t care about actually sending human beings to shoot at and be shot at by other human beings for no gain to anyone involved. Why in the world would they care if poor economic conditions hurt the Third World? It’s a strawman, plain and simple.
3) I think expending American soldiers to prevent genocide in other countries is not obviously good foreign policy. I’d like to see the UN get involved in some way, but it’s quite simply the case that the United States has no authority to unilaterally interfere with the affairs of other countries. There is no legal framework (and I would argue no moral one either) that allows the American people to decide what is and is not acceptable behavior on the part of foreign governments.
The US did not intervene unilaterally in Bosnia. The military action was part of a NATO operation.
To my undying shame, I bought the Administration’s line that Saddam had a nuclear weapons program. We now know that their evidence was all fake. There was no yellowcake from Niger (and they knew it). The aluminum tubes were unsuitable for making gas centrifuges (and they knew it).
Mohamed El Baradei was right. And, no, Ryan, he wasn’t even remotely a crank. Not a single piece of “evidence” presented in the run-up to the war stands up to scrutiny.
That others (including various foreign governments) were similarly bamboozled doesn’t let me off the hook. Nor does it absolve them. There were enough red flags (the Administration’s equally concerted attempt to tie Saddam to 9/11 which, even then was obvious, transparent flimflammery) that I, and everyone else, should have been much more skeptical of the Administration’s WMD claims.
Let us also not forget Powell’s transparently mendacious presentation at the UN. What’s most remarkable to me is that, at the time, I saw the Administration lying through their teeth about the evidence, *knew* they were lying through their teeth about the evidence, but still basically believed their account. Even reading Blix’s book and thinking in retrospect, there are plenty of reasons to believe that Hussein had a weapons program. Even without the kind of evidence the Administration claimed it had, I don’t think it was incredibly crazy to come to the conclusion that they were ultimately not wrong about Hussein. The fatal error was in believing that it mattered either way, that we had some God-given (bleeeecccchh) right to decide a-legally (or illegally, depending on your perspective) that Hussein needed to be removed from power. We had and have no such right, nor did we have any understanding of what our intervention would do to the region. Less than two years after 9/11, somehow we still believed that we could solve our foreign policy dilemmas by sending an occupying force to the Middle East. The hubris is galling and embarrassing.
Ryan, I supplied no evidence that Iraq was improving – rather, I linked to evidence presented by the Brookings Institution that is extremely comprehensive and well-sourced. Can you dispute a single figure in the Brookings Institution Iraq Index?
If so, please provide page number, alternate source of data, and confidence level in the results.
I’m not interested in rants, but evidence…but first you’ll have to actually read the report. If you do, you might be surprised at the difference now and twelve months ago…I never said Iraq was ‘better’ than before the war (though in some measures they are, and in some measures they’re quite a bit worse off). I said the recent trend was improvement.
If you deny that, then you are truly blinded by your hatred of Bush. You don’t have to like Bush or his policy to admit that things have improved in Iraq as of late. You just have to look at the evidence…
Point is, though, Mark, why do we just have to look at the recent trend? And what about history tells us that that recent trend can be extrapolated directly to a free and Democratic US-friendly Iraq by sheer power of American will?
Never claimed any of those things, if you’ll look back at this carefully and read all the previous comments and the post. What I DID say was that, given the relatively low current casualty level, and the trend of improvement, I’m in favor of maintaining a presence, thought not indefinitely…I’ve been careful from the beginning of this thread to stress that I’m not making any large claims about whether the war was worth it from the beginning, but rather talking about what I favor for the present time…I also was very explicit in saying that the decision to invade was a mistake.
In my opinion, pulling out now, given the present situation, would be another mistake. We can’t stay forever, but we can stay for now (again, with the caveat that our presence will have to be a smaller one sooner rather than later)…
But you were in favor of staying when the trend was very different from what it is now. How am I supposed to take you at your word on these motives?
Mark, I’m not ranting at you or even disputing your evidence. I agree that it is entirely sensible to say Iraq is right now in better shape than it was a year ago. I am merely making the same point Fargus is: you pick an arbitrary point (say, one year ago), notice things are improved over that period, and then declare, “Hey, we’re doing a heckuva job”. It’s nutty. Pick other, equally sensible (arbitrary) points to start your trend and we look like the Keystone Kops. Only with, you know, more wasted human lives. Your position isn’t argument; it’s propaganda.
The bottom line is that, when things were going poorly, you wanted to stay etiher because we had a responsibility to make things better or because we would make things even worse if we left. Now, when things are on the uptick, we have to stay because we don’t want to ruin our good work. Exactly what would have to happen for you to think staying has become a poor idea?
Well, Fargus and Ryan, you’re half-right – I never entirely gave up on the war…but I did come close, when things were going poorly, so you can hardly paint me as an apologist. In fact, my position has evolved. I didn’t reach the point where I could call the initial decision to go to war a mistake until sometime in 2007, probably (I didn’t have time to review all my Iraq posts), and I also recall taking some flack from some of my then-regulars who have probably abandoned me by now for saying, when the carnage was peaking pre-surge, that we were getting very close to the point where the war wasn’t sustainable and wasn’t worth it.
But the point is, things DID improve, and you guys seem to be ignoring the only real point I am trying to make – I’m not talking about the war in its entirety. I’m talking about RIGHT NOW. Does it make sense to stay or go at this moment?
You have reached different conclusions than I have, and that’s fine – I don’t have any pretenses to omniscience. But my point during this thread has been a simple one – despite all the blundering, despite the initial mistake to invade on the basis of non-existent WMD stockpiles, the current situation is encouraging, and I think the correct current position is to stay.
In fact, at the Swedish conference on Iraq today, here’s what the UN Secretary General said:
The one word he chose to describe the situation in Iraq was…hope. That’s a powerful statement and quite encouraging…
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