Fouad Ajami expressed his regret that President Bush is leaving office.
One thing is sure to go with Mr. Bush when he departs to Crawford, Texas: his “diplomacy of freedom.” That diplomacy — which propelled the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which drove the Syrians out of Lebanon after they had all but destroyed the sovereignty of that country, and had challenged pro-American allies in Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula — is gone for good.
It was an odd spectacle, the time behind us: a conservative American president preaching the gospel of liberty for lands beyond, his liberal detractors at home giving voice to a deep skepticism about liberty’s chances in inhospitable settings. No one was more revealing of the liberal temper — and of things to come — than Vice President-elect Joe Biden (then the point man for foreign policy among the Democrats) speaking in December 2006 about the hazards of believing in liberty’s appeal to Muslim lands. Of President Bush, he said: “He has this wholesome but naive view that Westerners’ notions of liberty are easily transported to that area of the world.” Mr. Biden knew better: He warned the president, he said, that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s view of liberty differed from “our view of liberty . . . I think the president thinks there’s a Thomas Jefferson or Madison behind every sand dune waiting to jump up. And there are none.”
In an op-ed yesterday, Max Boot lamented how President Bush fell short in the area of foreign policy. He summarized his argument here.
You can defend Bush by saying that it is appropriate to use presidential speeches to set ambitious goals; even if they are not met, they can nudge lower-level officials in the right direction. The problem is that Bush seems to have done so little to turn his goals into actions, especially in the second term, that he has created a damaging credibility gap. Iran is a case in point. Bush has long talked of holding states to account for their support of terrorism and attempts to develop weapons of mass destruction. But there is not much evidence that he is doing much to hold Iran to account. Or Pakistan. Or Syria. That breeds contempt for American power-and lack of fear is far more dangerous for a superpower than lack of love (the problem that Obama et al. always complain about).
Here’s an example of that failure to follow through. Natan Sharansky and Bassam Eid gave a fuller treatment of President Bush’s’ failure to follow through regarding his calls for freedom.
Both Ajami and Boot supported President Bush’s freedom agenda. Ajami, I think, feels President Bush successfully advance the cause of freedom but that he did not effectively consolidate his gains. Boot is less generous in his assessment of the president.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
