George Bush deserves better

Greg Sheriden:

I WRITE in praise of George W. Bush. I recognise this may be an eccentric position to hold and an eccentric moment to express it. But I am inspired by the example of the great Catholic polemicist, B. A.Santamaria.

In 1963, South Vietnam's president Ngo Dinh Diem was assassinated in a military coup backed by the Americans, though they didn't back his murder. To cover the assassination, the slander was put out that Diem, a devout Catholic, had committed suicide. Santa was torn. He wanted to defend Diem and denounce the Americans for the most foolish thing they did in Vietnam. But with a federal election looming he worried that he might diminish support for the US alliance. In the end Santa robustly defended Diem and denounced Washington's folly.

Later his great friend, archbishop Daniel Mannix, told Santa he haddone the right thing. For, he said, you must always be loyal to your friends, especially when they are dead and the whole world is against them.

Right now the whole world is absurdly against Bush. If he jumped in front of a speeding train to rescue an old woman he would be accused of cynically promoting US rail interests. In time, I'm sure, a more balanced understanding of Bush's achievements, as well as his failures, will emerge. But right now he's about as popular as a Wall Street stockbroker at a pensioners' rally.

Any defence of Bush and his administration must acknowledge its faults because, more than in any other administration, the virtues and the vices have been two sides of the same coin. Bush's biggest failing was his inability to speak persuasively to an international audience. His stubbornness, which is courage if you look at it a different way, was amplified for foreign audiences a thousand times by the Texan accent. In rejecting elite American opinion, he too often looked as though he was rejecting international opinion. In dismissing The New York Times, he seemed to dismiss Europe.

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Now, the successes. Barack Obama in some measure owes his success to the inclusiveness of Bush. Bush appointed Powell secretary of state. He appointed Condoleezza Rice national security adviser, then Secretary of State. Over eight years, this accustomed the electorate to African-Americans handling critical national security positions. No other president, certainly no Democrat, had done anything like it. Bush was always a liberal on race, always way ahead of his party on immigration and the need for Republicans to woo racial minorities, particularly Hispanics. Without embracing the rhetoric of identity politics, he simply did things that advanced racial equality.

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Similarly, the US-India nuclear deal, which symbolises the entire new strategic relationship with India, compares in historical import with Richard Nixon's opening to China. Likewise with Japan. Bush encouraged Tokyo to become an independent strategic partner within the framework of the US alliance. This removes the crippling psychological burden of strategic client status for Japan and, by making the US-Japan alliance militarily reciprocal, enormously strengthens the US position in North Asia.

The US reduced the footprint of its troop presence in Japan and South Korea while keeping those alliances strong. It re-established a healthy priority for Southeast Asia. US poll figures in most of Asia were better towards the end of the Bush administration than at its start.

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More generally, Bush was always ready to take Australian interests into account. Almost certainly we will never again have as good a friend in the White House. His first administration contained a group of senior officials - Cheney, Rich Armitage, Paul Wolfowitz, Bob Zoellick - with very deep Australian connections, and a doctrine that put solid allies ahead of all others. Howard sensibly took maximum advantage of all that this offered.

Bush doesn't get the credit he deserves for greatly increasing US aid to Africa, especially on AIDS. In reality no Democratic president would have done more.

Much of history's judgment of Bush will turn on Iraq and Afghanistan. This column, in what is certainly a minority position, believes the Iraq operation was the right thing to do on the basis of the information available and Bush was courageous to do it. More recently, Bush defied all his advisers to implement the troop surge that turned Iraq from a catastrophe to a chance of success.

This President, infinitely more complex than his reviews would suggest, will have a better place in history than most of his critics.

I think his decision to win in Iraq was his most important accomplishment. One of the reasons the left was so desperate for defeat in Iraq is their belief that the US cannot win counterinsurgency wars. Bush and Gen. Petraeus showed that you can and this can have an important long term impact on US national security.

Our adversaries know they can not defeat us in a war involving major combat operations where forces are in persistent contact. Now they must also take into account that they US military can also defeat them in an insurgency. That will give us significant negotiating advantages in the future. Now those adversaries must hope that Democrats get elected.