The Nuke-yoo-lar Topic of W's Legacy

I friend of mine recently e-mailed an op-ed piece from Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post titled "History Will Judge." The link provided should take you right to it, and it's well worth the read. I feel sheepish that I hadn't read it or linked to it before, but there are only so many hours in the day for keeping up on the news.

I was happy to see that what was sent in e-mail actually matched the online column, with no edits one way or another. Sadly, I never trust what gets sent via e-mail any more. I don't even subscribe to the age-old Cold War tenet of "Trust but Verify." Whose motto was that? Better than "In God we trust. All others we monitor," which is a motto many spooks might recognize.

The reason why I feel compelled to discuss Krauthammer's column is because I'd been thinking about W's post-Presidency plans myself recently. Seriously. I've been trying to get my head around what W will do in retirement, since I can't picture him being invited to the public speaker lecture circuit any time soon. Which group would have him? Even the die-hardiest of the die-hard GOP faithful have distanced themselves from anything to do with Bush's administration.

I'm sure Bush will continue to have many friends in high places, certainly. He still has his defenders, and he still should have plenty of influence. On what, though? As Krauthammer points out, history will most likely be kinder to W as peoples' memories fade a bit. If no less than Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter can all get image rehabs after leaving office, then certainly Bush can, too.

One question for which we really won't have an answer for years to come will be how this very recent Wall Street implosion will affect W's legacy. Nixon (almost impeached), Ford (stagflation), and Carter (malaise) successfully rehabbed their legacies after leaving office; Hoover (Great Depression) did not. I'm not ready to commit to calling these banking problems and economic hard times anything close to another Great Depression. In 1929, over 300 banks had closed their doors even before the stock market crashed. In 1930, over 1,000 additional banks closed forever and the phrase "bank run" struck fears all across the U.S. We're not there yet, and the structural laws and oversight bodies put in place after 1929 should keep us out of another Great Depression. That's the whole idea, at least.

There's no doubt that Wall Street has had its worst week ever (WSJ article, subscription req'd.). I'd like to think that agricultural policies have changed enough so that we won't hit another Dust Bowl again. Unemployment remains relatively low -- last I checked, I think it was around 6%, although as part of the recent rate cut by the Fed, they said they think it will edge up to 7-7.5% by late 2009. Certainly that is still nowhere near the 25% unemployment hit during the Great Depression. Durable goods orders are down and inventories are up, which spell Recession for the economy, and most economists are predicting we're already in a Recession now (more WSJ).

The reason all of the economics issues is important for Bush is that they will have a far more lasting impact on his Presidential legacy than anything else he's done. This is also the key difference from the Krauthammer column, which was published before the Wall Street meltdown. W could be forgiven for promoting a "shoot first, ask questions later" foreign policy. He could be forgiven for domestic spying if it truly keeps us safe from another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. W could be forgiven for acting unilaterally when he felt compelled to do so, even though I think we all remember then-Secretary of State Colin Powell's briefing to the UN Security Council regarding the threat in Iraq. So what if Saddam's WMDs were a figment of his imagination and little more than a ruse to keep the Iranians from attacking? In 2003, everyone agreed they were a real problem. I even think W can be forgiven for his line about looking into Putin's soul back in 2001, as ridiculous as that seems now.

I think Bush will retire to his ranch in Crawford, TX (and everything is bigger in Texas, haven't you heard?), and perhaps have some measure of peace in the months following his departure from the White House. How long can he cut brush? How much mesquite is there in Texas? Would a following administration really put W on the road for sensitive diplomatic missions, as W's father and Bill Clinton have done together? Could you imagine W in France next year, cheering on THE GREAT COMEBACK by Lance Armstrong? It boggles the mind.

If nothing else, W in January becomes fair game for the SNL animation "The X Presidents" as part of their TV Funhouse lineup. So we at least have that to look forward to.

Sarah Palin Speaks

Hmmmm...

That's my official reaction to hearing and reading what Sarah Palin said on ABC News this week, during her first unscripted appearance and interview on a major news network. As I said before, I believe that she deserves the opportunity to speak for herself and to prove to the country that she deserves to be John McCain's VP candidate. Now that she's had that opportunity to defend her own record in an interview with Charlie Gibson, I'm now scratching my head a little.

Let's start with Charlie's questioning about whether or not she's ever met a foreign head of state. She admitted she has not. Ever. She rightly pointed out that she is not the first VP candidate to be in that position, but she clearly does not have any experience negotiating tough deals with foreign heads of state. Since the VP position tends to be more ceremonial than functional (well, it did before Dick Cheney), that inexperience might not be a drawback for Palin.

Charlie moved on to discuss Sarah's perspective on specific national security situations, the first of which was dealing with a resurgent Russia and the recent events in Georgia, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. Here are the direct quotes, straight from the ABC News website:

Sarah Palin on Russia:

We cannot repeat the Cold War. We are thankful that, under Reagan, we won the Cold War, without a shot fired, also. We've learned lessons from that in our relationship with Russia, previously the Soviet Union.

We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it's in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.

GIBSON: Would you favor putting Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

PALIN: Ukraine, definitely, yes. Yes, and Georgia.

GIBSON: Because Putin has said he would not tolerate NATO incursion into the Caucasus.

PALIN: Well, you know, the Rose Revolution, the Orange Revolution, those actions have showed us that those democratic nations, I believe, deserve to be in NATO.

Putin thinks otherwise. Obviously, he thinks otherwise, but...

GIBSON: And under the NATO treaty, wouldn't we then have to go to war if Russia went into Georgia?

PALIN: Perhaps so. I mean, that is the agreement when you are a NATO ally, is if another country is attacked, you're going to be expected to be called upon and help.

But NATO, I think, should include Ukraine, definitely, at this point and I think that we need to -- especially with new leadership coming in on January 20, being sworn on, on either ticket, we have got to make sure that we strengthen our allies, our ties with each one of those NATO members.

We have got to make sure that that is the group that can be counted upon to defend one another in a very dangerous world today.

GIBSON: And you think it would be worth it to the United States, Georgia is worth it to the United States to go to war if Russia were to invade.

PALIN: What I think is that smaller democratic countries that are invaded by a larger power is something for us to be vigilant against. We have got to be cognizant of what the consequences are if a larger power is able to take over smaller democratic countries.

And we have got to be vigilant. We have got to show the support, in this case, for Georgia. The support that we can show is economic sanctions perhaps against Russia, if this is what it leads to.

It doesn't have to lead to war and it doesn't have to lead, as I said, to a Cold War, but economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, again, counting on our allies to help us do that in this mission of keeping our eye on Russia and Putin and some of his desire to control and to control much more than smaller democratic countries.

His mission, if it is to control energy supplies, also, coming from and through Russia, that's a dangerous position for our world to be in, if we were to allow that to happen.

Now, of course, I'm very happy to hear that Palin does not advocate a return to the Cold War. She's flat-out wrong about no shots fired during the Cold War, naturally. Francis Gary Powers springs to mind. The US also might not have much of a choice about a renewed Cold War with Russia. I'm not saying that Big Bad Vlad (Putin) wants to reinstate the Iron Curtain and rebuild the buffer zone of Eastern European countries in another USSR. However, he does seem to want to reassert Russia's zones of influence and return Russia to a resurgent role as superpower on the world stage.

This about this from Putin's perspective. Russia was bankrupt towards the end of the Cold War and simply couldn't keep up with Reagan's military buildup in the 1980s. (Then again, how well did the US afford that buildup?) First Gorby and then Yeltsin promoted the idea of Glasnost and Perestroika, encouraging more transparency within the government and warmer ties with the West. In exchange, Russia was shown to have significant issues within its military, and while they always maintained their importance in the UN Security Council, The West learned we didn't have quite as much to fear from Russia as we thought during the Cold War.

Which meant the US was then free to act much more unilaterally and with some impunity when it came to matters of national security. What did Russia get in return? Some free market reforms that made the oligarchs and Russian mafia rich, but certainly a diminished role and very little opposition to US objectives. War in the Balkans? The US stepped in during the Dayton Peace Accords and still maintains boots on the ground there. War in the Middle East? The US has conducted not one, but three different wars since the early '90s with very little to no consideration for Russian goals or objectives in the region. Of course, the Russians might have the last laugh if the US also has to leave the mountains of Afghanistan without a long-lasting solution against the Islamic fundamentalists there. But the Russians aren't providing the remnants of the Taliban with guns and Stingers the way we did during their occupation of the country in the '80s.

So, for Palin and, I assume McCain also, to suggest that we need to include Georgia and Ukraine in NATO against Russian opposition to such a move is dangerous and reckless at the very least. I understand that leaders in Ukraine and Georgia are asking for membership in NATO and the European Union. They have much more to gain by aligning themselves with Western Europe than with Russia. However, I would not be surprised in the least for Russia to invent another provocation against ethnic Russians living in Sevastopol, their long-time warm weather port and home to the Russian Black Sea fleet. Any excuse they can use to send in troops and control the necessary land of Ukraine, I believe they will do. Putin has shown he is willing to commit troops on such a cause, and they are looking for ways of provoking a fight with the US as this WSJ article shows (subscription req'd). Why else would Russia claim a stolen US passport was evidence of US meddling or mercenaries in Georgia? Russia is itching for a fight, and we don't need to provoke them by trying to include Georgia and Ukraine in NATO.

Let's get back to Palin. She also discussed the Bush Doctrine* with Gibson. (Watch the video on ABC News/Yahoo here.) More appropriately, it seemed as though Gibson had to tell Palin what the Bush Doctrine was, and then she had to react to being caught off-guard. She certainly supports Bush's ability to strike at Islamic extremists at will, pre-emptively if needed, but then she wanted to resume the McCain-Palin ticket's claim to being agents of change.

*As perhaps one of the most significant foreign policy shifts since the Truman Doctrine stated the U.S. would do everything in its power to prevent Greece and Turkey from falling under Soviet influence after WWII, the Bush Doctrine is certainly worth knowing cold for any future Presidential candidate. It's also certainly worth contrasting with the Powell Doctrine, used so effectively by Bush 41 in the First Persian Gulf War in 1991.

Frankly, it can be quite confusing. Would a McCain Administration continue prosecuting unpopular military actions in Afghanistan and, increasingly, Pakistan, with the prospects of expanding the war on terror? Pakistan poses its own high wire diplomatic drama, with factions taking hard line stances against having US troops conducting offensive actions in western Pakistan. The official government line, for now, is resorting to diplomacy, but how long will that last?

So, all of this once again makes me think, "Hmmmm..." How much could we trust a McCain-Palin administration to keep us safe in the new world order? How much should we trust them with foreign affairs? How well do they understand all the issues? And would an Obama-Biden administration do any better?