Office of the Independent Blogger

George Bush took the Japanese Prime Minister to Graceland for a summit, as the PM is a big fan of Elvis Presley, and out came this piece about Bush’s “style” of diplomacy.

But even more important than the journey to Memphis is what the trip says about Bush’s exceptionally personal form of diplomacy. Bush’s foreign policy aides insist that the idea for a Graceland visit came from the president himself, not from Koizumi. “About a year ago, the president started saying to us as staff, ‘I would like to take him to Graceland,’ and we all thought he might be joking,” said one senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity in talking about Bush’s foreign-policy discussions. “But as he repeated it several times to us, we realized he indeed thought it was a great thing to do.”

Call me a buzzkill if you will — I’d prefer the term “Buzzsaw” thank you very much — but this “one on one” diplomacy is not George Bush’s style. By the article’s admission, it is an act he engages in with but a handful of leaders, and only with those he considers friends, a caveat that damages the effectiveness of this diplomacy. If you’re only on good terms with your friends, and only willing to play friend-ally-diplomat with only those you are already friends with, then you’re bound to have problems.

Unlike the article, however, I think this type of diplomacy is excellent and should be engaged in with every world leader who you are on good diplomatic terms, and even those with whom we have rocky relations. That is to say, if we have a problem with the Turks over troop positioning in Iraq, that’s no reason not to engage their leadership openly and personally. If we take Kim Jung Il out to lunch at an Old Country Buffet, that is when we have problems. That is, at least, my take on the abstract and theoretical of personal diplomacy. George Bush, being George Bush, finds ways to pour gravel on even the smoothest roads.

There are other limits to this kind of diplomacy: a surprising reluctance to delve into sensitive problems. Given the nature of their friendship, it’s remarkable to note that Bush and Koizumi don’t talk much about Japan’s precarious diplomatic position in its own region. Even as Koizumi has grown closer to Bush, Japan’s relations with China and South Korea have deteriorated. At the heart of those tensions are Japan’s limited steps to acknowledge its wartime atrocities, as well as Koizumi’s visits to the Yasakuni shrine that honors the military, including war criminals. To this day, the White House prefers to leave such delicate issues to the Japanese and suggests that China has been stoking nationalist feelings against Japan for purely political reasons.

This isn’t a failure of one-on-one diplomacy: it’s a failure of the President to talk to his friends about serious issues. If Bush would rather sit around playing XBOX with world leaders, that’s one thing, but it’s not a reason to knock the style of diplomacy. Personally, I am a firm believer in this type of diplomacy, and I’ve always found it best to engage people upfront and personally rather than through second-hand back-channels. I, however, have never had a problem being frank with my friends and discussing things of a serious nature with them, while Bush is a man who would rather let all problems fester as they’re ignored — case in point: Korea, Iran.

It seems that his list of incapables grows by the day.

Might I be trite, and suggest that he invite NATO and the representatives of the European Union over for supper, and ask them to be dear old boys and give us the help we need in Iraq?

By largely going it alone in Iraq, we rapidly transformed ourselves from liberator to occupying power. All burdens have fallen on the Americans, but our credibility is too tarnished to handle them. Neither world public opinion nor American political dynamics will allow us to stay there long enough to stabilize Iraqi society, even if we could. No one country has either the resources or the credibility to do the job alone. We need direct and long-term engagement by other major countries, including a credible multilateral military force, and we need it fast.

To organize such help the administration would need to accept three painful truths: (1) that neither George W. Bush nor his successor will be able to finish the job in Iraq; (2) that the current “coalition” is not close to being the serious international presence needed to stabilize Iraq in the coming years; and, perhaps most difficult, (3) that even for the United States some sort of international legitimacy is essential to maintain viability, both domestic and international, for the long term.

Experience in the Balkans and elsewhere shows that this sort of political-military engagement takes years to complete. Ten years later, we are still in Bosnia and are far from dealing with the tensions in Kosovo. But one former Yugoslav republic has already entered NATO and the European Union, and one more is in the wings. The Balkans have been stabilized, the United States has handed most of the responsibility to the United Nations and the European Union, and the long process of integration is underway. Would that we could foresee such a future for Iraq and its neighbors. But we can’t. We need to look beyond past disputes and find a means to put in place a structure that would make such a long-term commitment possible.

The administration’s bipartisan commission on the use of intelligence in Iraq could be helpful in this regard. If its members focused on the practical lessons of the Iraq invasion, they could perform an essential service by helping to define the next steps. One important action would be to build an informal consensus among major countries on the need for a stronger international presence. This job might not be as difficult as it seems. Models of such structures can be found in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. Each was tailored to fit a specific situation. No one wants to see Iraq dissolve. Experience shows that most countries do not want to usurp the central role of the United States, especially where military responsibility is concerned. With goodwill on all sides, it should be possible to find a consensus.

I don’t understand George Bush, and it might be best if I stopped trying to. It might have to do with the fact that I can be bothered to read, but I see all of these articles in the press about how to fix the situation in Iraq, and what to do, and yet Bush can’t seem to take action other than inaction. Staying on the course is no longer viable — does he really think it is?

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Outside Retort (Current Affairs).