Bush’s Failure: Not Being Bush

January 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Bush Administration, International Affairs, Middle East, National Security, Russia 

Despite numerous successes in a foreign policy (the positive regional effects of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) that ran in opposition with many of his foes, it is precisely their preferred use of soft power that Bush applied with Iran, Russia, and North Korea that has contributed to global instability in the past eight years:

On his own post-9/11 terms, Mr. Bush’s biggest failure has been Iran. He outsourced diplomacy to the Europeans and U.N. — despite his caricature as a go-it-alone cowboy. But these efforts merely gave the mullahs cover and years to build their bomb. The President also indulged Condoleezza Rice’s illusion that some grand bargain could be found with Tehran’s revolutionary regime. The same could be said for his diplomatic dead end in North Korea.

The President tried smooth talk on Vladimir Putin, with equally poor results. His famous misreading of the man gave the Kremlin confidence to repress its own people and intimidate its neighbors without fear of serious U.S. rebuke. Mr. Bush did stay a stalwart ally to the young democracies in that region, helping keep Ukraine and Georgia, so far, out of Moscow’s reconstituting empire.

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