Totally Unconvincing

At his press conference, Bush failed yet again to make his

case for war. Here’s why

by Jonathan Alter

http://www.msnbc.com/news/882083.asp?0cv=KA01#BODY

NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE

March 7 — He was steely, determined,

resolute—and totally unconvincing to anyone

who didn’t already agree with him.

AT HIS PRIME-TIME PRESS conference Thursday

night—only his second since assuming the presidency more

than two years ago—President Bush showed why he’s in this

diplomatic vise. He’s got a good case but has made a hash out

of it. His two key mistakes: a failure to build momentum and a

failure to drill down to a deeper, more compelling logic for

war.

Building the right momentum required a trait the late

columnist Joseph Alsop found in Franklin Roosevelt:

"longheadedness"—an ability to calculate how things will play

out. During the past year, Bush didn’t do that. For instance, at

one point in the news conference, Bush said: "That happens to

be my last choice—the use of force." Sounds good, but it

simply wasn’t believable. Everyone knows that war has been

the president’s first choice—not his last—since at least the

summer of 2002. In trying to play the reluctant sheriff, Bush

cast himself in a role that rang false. He has, for months, been

the eager sheriff.

Bush accuses Iraq of ’charade’

March 6, 2003 — President Bush, who

accused Iraq of a ’charade’ on U.N.

weapons inspections, discusses the

crisis with the American people.

Imagine if instead of cowboyspeak about "regime

change" and other name-calling last year, Bush had offered

Saddam Hussein a timetable for disarmament. Then, after the

dictator failed several tests, Bush’s anger would not have

seemed so "personal," as was suggested in one of last night’s

questions he didn’t answer. That timetable could have even

been independent of the United Nations—a second track

alongside inspections to keep the pressure on. But if it had

been offered in the spirit of a genuine desire for disarmament,

Saddam’s unwillingness to comply would have been more

glaring. Bush’s problem was that he started with a war cry and

had nothing to escalate to. His anger has become a kind of

monotone, which seriously depletes its effectiveness.

Clift: The Real Bush Agenda on Iraq

The same lack of long-term thinking applies to the U.N.

It’s one thing for France or Russia to veto a Security Council

resolution. That has happened before. But Bush seems

determined to go ahead even if the U.S. is actually outvoted

on the Council. He wants his opponents there to be on the

record opposing the war. Why? To rub their faces in it after a

big victory on the ground? Smart diplomacy is about

preventing other countries from embarrassment, not causing it.

Bush’s satisfaction in being the principled loser in the Council

is outweighing his long-term interest in repairing relations with

our allies.

The second big problem with the Bush sales job is one of

simple logic. Bush was lucky that no reporter asked him about

his administration’s most recent budget request for rebuilding

Afghanistan—a big fat zero. (Congress added a couple of

hundred million). He seems to think we can play 52-card

pickup and then simply leave the room.

The same logical inconsistency applies to North Korea,

which he described as a "regional problem." Let’s get this

straight: Saddam’s potential development of nuclear weapons

five or 10 years from now constitutes an imminent threat to the

United States, but North Korea’s possession of them five to

10 weeks from now does not? I personally favor taking out

Saddam now so that he’s not Kim Jong Il in a few years. But

it seems extremely unwise to ignore the threat of North Korea

just because we have our heart set on hitting someone else.

The president’s deeper logical problem relates to the

way he uses the bully pulpit to make an argument. His

habit—on display again Thursday night—is to simply assert,

assert, assert until the message sinks in. It’s as if war

supporters believe that if they repeat the Saddam-Al Qaeda

connection enough, people will eventually believe it.

Transcript of Bush Press Conference

Imagine if instead the president explained that

terrorism—by Al Qaeda or anyone else—simply doesn’t

work in the long term without state sponsorship. Terrorists can

deploy weapons of mass destruction but they can’t make

them. That requires a rogue state. Over time, no rogue

states—no terrorism of mass destruction. This would have

required Bush to move beyond platitudes to a more nuanced

analysis of how Iraq’s potential to develop nukes is at the

heart of the rationale for war. The fact that he didn’t offer the

nuclear argument (in part out of fear of looking hypocritical on

North Korea) explains in part why the larger case has been

made so poorly. Instead, we get a scattershot "If it’s Tuesday

this must be the 9-11 connection" style of selling the war.

My biggest concern is

not that Bush has already

decided to go to war (You

could tell that from the past

tense he used: "I wish

Saddam Hussein had

listened"). It’s that he

made the decision not this

week or last but many

months ago, and he never

seemed to refine it. Now

the consequences of the

decision are about to be

out of his control. "Events

are in the saddle and tend

to ride mankind," Ralph

Waldo Emerson wrote. Soon enough, we’ll know which

direction.