Bush’s home run: neocon victory, realist world

My last column described the perfervid pre–election mood in Washington and sketched the likely consequences of a Bush triumph for the Republican party in these terms:

“A Bush victory will leave realists like myself trying to make the case the president won despite, not because of, Iraq. We will urge President Bush to adjust his foreign–policy course, much as President Reagan did so brilliantly in his second remarkable term, which paved the way for the peaceful end to the cold war. Neocons, sensibly enough, will say they kept their nerve and the president should stay the course.”

Well. In a town with one favorite sport – judging who is up, who down, and what it all means – four weeks is an eternity. For if, in the sullen aftermath of defeat, the Democratic civil war has not yet really started, Republican bureaucratic struggles are already almost over. And from my point of view, things sure are not pretty. Simply put, despite Iraq, despite the failure of the “greater middle east” project, despite a non–existent Iran policy, despite it all–there is no doubt that the neo–conservatives have emerged victorious in their struggle with realists for control of American foreign policy during the remainder of the Bush administration. In fact it was a rout.

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With Colin Powell’s retirement, realists have lost their most important advocate. Unique among the president’s senior foreign–policy staff, Powell had an independent political power–base. In fact, he remains in many polls the most admired man in the nation. His forceful deputy, Richard Armitage, has followed him into the sunset. Realism has lost its last standard–bearers.

At the senior level, there seems no realist replacement of note. Based on George W Bush’s extraordinary press conference with the British prime minister, Tony Blair on 31 January, it is painfully apparent that the president himself remains a convinced neo–conservative. Dick Cheney, the most powerful vice–president in history, along with his powerful staff, also remains a true believer.

Condoleezza Rice, the senior staffer personally closest to the president, has been nominated to replace Powell at the state department. While exhibiting realist leanings before coming to power, Rice has faithfully echoed the president’s own neo–conservative views during her time as director of the National Security Council (NSC). There is little doubt that she will continue to faithfully echo this line, even from Foggy Bottom. While less strident in her views than other neo–conservatives (she can be thought of as “neocon–lite”), her promotion to secretary of state can only be viewed as very bad news for realists.

Her deputy at the NSC, Stephen Hadley, will become the new national security advisor. A long–time Cheney protégé, the mild–mannered Hadley is unlikely – even though he exhibits some realist tendencies – either to want or be able to rock the boat.

Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense and last realist standing, will stay on. But, mired in Iraq, the aftermath of the Abu Ghraib scandal, and military modernisation, his plate is more than full. His civilian neo–conservative advisors, notably deputy–secretary Paul Wolfowitz, will continue to play a vital role in setting policy.

So a neocon president, vice–president, vice–president’s staff, secretary of state, and secretary of defense’s staff confront us. The fiction of a realist/neo–conservative balance that was a defining feature of the first term – epitomised by Colin Powell’s struggles with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney – is definitively over.

Both a great strength of realism (to look at things as they actually are) and a great adage of modern policy–making (that people make policy, that the views of decision–makers are central to understanding a country’s overall foreign–policy outputs) command a single conclusion: by temperament this is going to be, on its face, an even more neo–conservative administration than was the first Bush term. Any alternative analysis simply flies in the face of reality.

In winning this decisive bureaucratic victory, the neocons have once more demonstrated their toughness, their savvy, and their intelligence. And yet, events have a way of derailing even the most committed ideologue, particularly intelligent ideologues.

The world, moreover, is increasingly moving in a realist direction. The bill for Iraq, as of February 2005, will be $250 billion, with the meter still running. The president has somewhat surprisingly committed himself to pension and tax reform, both of which will take immense amounts of money and political capital to bring to a reality. And, as argued in an earlier column, Iran looms as the next major foreign–policy crisis over the horizon. America’s current do–nothing approach to the Islamic republic is more of an attitude rather than a policy.

It is these objective realities that explain the president’s press conference with Tony Blair.

With the death of Yasser Arafat, the president committed himself to four steps that must have been music to the ears of the prime minister: first, he promised to help the Palestinians have genuine democratic elections to elect a legitimate successor to the discredited Arafat; second, he renewed his commitment to a two–state solution of the Arab–Israeli conflict; third (and critically), he specifically said he was prepared to risk political capital to achieve such a settlement; fourth, he stated that his first trip abroad after the inauguration would be to go to Europe to confer with Europe’s leaders. All this is as close to an outstretched hand as Europe could hope to get.

How to square the circle of the neocon victory with these decidedly un–neocon moves? Only by understanding that the world has a way of ameliorating even the most insular ideologies. Now the ball is very much in Europe’s court. If Europe fails to present concrete policy proposals (rather than the routine, over–general cultural critiques of America) to the United States during the president’s next visit (probably in early 2005), this will strengthen the hand of the very people who murmur about Europeans’ fecklessness.

If, however, Europe succeeds in presenting thoughtful, focused policy recommendations in four areas – the Arab–Israeli crisis, Iraqi debt relief, a common approach to Iran, and the Doha free–trade round – this will bolster Atlanticists throughout the administration.

In short, the bureaucratic hand Europe has been dealt could be better; but reality itself has kept Atlanticists on both sides of the ocean in the game.