A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

by Glenn Greenwald

  As Bush supporter and former CIA director James Woolsey said during a television appearance in January 2002 about the president’s accusations that Iran is a “state sponsor of terror”:

  It’s very definitely a clear statement of the president’s attitude and it leans—it seems to me—toward a policy of telling these governments that if they do not get out of the business of terror and developing weapons of mass destruction, they stand at risk of their regimes being deposed forcefully by the United States.

  One of President Bush’s closest and most influential aides during the first five years of his presidency, Michael Gerson, views military confrontation with Iran as highly likely and imminent, if not inevitable (not to mention noble and necessary). In an August 2006 Newsweek essay, Gerson revealed the type of counsel the president has been receiving for the last five years. “Cowboy diplomacy” is a virtue because it is the only approach that keeps Evil tyrants in line; operating from that premise, Gerson hopes for and all but predicts war with Iran:

  First, the nation may be tired, but history doesn’t care. It is not fair that the challenge of Iran is rising with Iraq, bloody and unresolved. But, as President Kennedy used to say, “Life is not fair.”

  Behind all the chaos and death in Lebanon and northern Israel, Iran is the main cause of worry in the West Wing—the crisis with the highest stakes…. And despite other disagreements, all the factions in Iran—conservative, ultraconservative and “let’s usher in the apocalypse” fanatics—seem united in a nuclear nationalism.

  Some commentators say that America is too exhausted to confront this threat. But presidential decisions on national security are not primarily made by the divination of public sentiments; they are made by the determination of national interests. And the low blood-sugar level of pundits counts not at all. Here the choice is not easy, but it is simple: can America (and other nations) accept a nuclear Iran?…

  There are still many steps of diplomacy, engagement and sanctions between today and a decision about military conflict with Iran—and there may yet be a peaceful solution.

  But in this diplomatic dance, America should not mirror the infinite patience of Europe. There must be someone in the world capable of drawing a line—someone who says, “This much and no further.” At some point, those who decide on aggression must pay a price, or aggression will be universal. If American “cowboy diplomacy” did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it.

  By the end of 2006, even some Democrats—almost entirely confined to those who supported the U.S. invasion of Iraq (and were therefore wrong about the need for that war)—were openly suggesting that war with Iran may be both inevitable and necessary, for exactly the same reasons they told Americans that war with Iraq was. Indiana senator Evan Bayh, for instance, told The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg:

  “You just hope that we haven’t soured an entire generation on the necessity, from time to time, of using force because Iraq has been such a debacle,” he said. “That would be tragic, because Iran is a grave threat. They’re everything we thought Iraq was but wasn’t. They are seeking nuclear weapons, they do support terrorists, they have threatened to destroy Israel, and they’ve threatened us, too.”

  Some key Bush supporters in government who are particularly impatient for war with Iran take Gerson’s aspirations a step or two further by proclaiming that the United States is already at war with Iran, and the only question is when the U.S. would begin fighting back. One of the most vocal supporters of the administration’s militaristic Middle East policies, Senator Joseph Lieberman, ended 2006 with a Washington Post editorial in which he, in essence, declared that we are already at war with Iran, and that our task is to recognize them as our real Enemy (emphasis added):

  While we are naturally focused on Iraq, a larger war is emerging. On one side are extremists and terrorists led and sponsored by Iran, on the other moderates and democrats supported by the United States. Iraq is the most deadly battlefield on which that conflict is being fought. How we end the struggle there will affect not only the region but the worldwide war against the extremists who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001.

  According to Lieberman, all the chaos and violence in Iraq is the fault of Iran and Al Qaeda:

  This bloodshed, moreover, is not the inevitable product of ancient hatreds. It is the predictable consequence of a failure to ensure basic security and, equally important, of a conscious strategy by al-Qaeda and Iran, which have systematically aimed to undermine Iraq’s fragile political center….

  On this point, let there be no doubt: If Iraq descends into full-scale civil war, it will be a tremendous battlefield victory for al-Qaeda and Iran. Iraq is the central front in the global and regional war against Islamic extremism.

  Perhaps most telling was the president’s own January 2007 prime-time speech to the nation, the ostensible purpose of which was to unveil his “surge” strategy for Iraq. In the course of the speech, the president mentioned Iran no fewer than six times and included what the New York Times described as “some of his sharpest words of warning to Iran” yet. But those words could be described more accurately as a virtual declaration of war. Bush accused the Iranian government of “providing material support for attacks on American troops” and vowed to “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.” But those networks are located in Iran, which means that search-and-destroy missions on such networks might include some incursion into Iranian territory, whether by air or ground.

  Hours before the speech, the White House released a PowerPoint presentation with details about the president’s new policy. “Increase operations against Iranian actors” was listed in the “Key Tactical Shifts” section. As the New York Times reported: “One senior administration official said this evening that the omission of the usual wording about seeking a diplomatic solution [to the Iranian nuclear stand-off ] ‘was not accidental.’”

  Notwithstanding a grossly depleted military bogged down in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the president’s own worldview—his decision to treat Iran as a pure “Evil”—has boxed him into a corner composed exclusively of a military option against Iran. Yet Iran is a country with a population ten times as large as Iraq’s, a military force that is more formidable, multiple means for inflicting real economic and even military damage on U.S. interests in the Middle East, and a cadre of allies that include some of the world’s most important and powerful countries. The president’s own cultivated Manicheanism, then, has propelled him toward an unsustainable and exceedingly dangerous confrontation with what he has come irrevocably to view as the “evil terrorist state” of Iran.

  FIGHTING ALL THE HITLERS

  Anyone, including the Iranians, paying even minimal attention to American political discourse over the past year or two would be keenly aware that a substantial portion of the president’s supporters are eager for military confrontation with Iran. The president is quite explicit about his Manichean view of the world, and those who exert influence on him have long recognized that depicting political conflicts, particularly international ones, in a framework of Good vs. Evil is the key for capturing the president’s attention and triggering his interest and passion.

  The Manichean framework that has been manufactured and publicly disseminated is the enabling foundation for the president’s policies. This framework is vividly illustrated by the ability of the president’s most militaristic supporters to persuade him in early 2002 to include Iran as part of the “axis of evil,” even in the midst of unprecedented U.S.-Iran rapprochement, and by their ongoing success in convincing the president to escalate hostilities with Iran. These enthusiasts for endless war simply ignore all subtleties and inconvenient facts, and substitute fact-free caricatures straight out of Saturday-morning League of Justice cartoons in which omnipotent superheroes invariably overcome all odds to defeat pure villains bent on world domination.

  Shoving a complex world into a simplistic moralistic framework not only grossly
contracts policy options but also, by design, stifles debate. By declaring Iran a Nazi-like Evil, the question of whether to wage war on it is transformed from a mere political question into a moral and even psychological one: By urging war, individuals can prove themselves opposed to Evil as well as strong, powerful, and resolute warriors. Conversely, by opposing war, one is revealed to be an appeaser of Evil and, worse, weak, spineless, and cowardly.

  This manipulative formula can be, and often is, applied by war supporters to influence the president’s own behavior. It is deployed to challenge the president’s courage and manliness—will he prove that he is a brave and devoted warrior for Good by recognizing Iran as pure Evil and treating it accordingly, or will he back down and reveal himself as a coward, one who submits meekly to political pressures and crawls away from the epic challenge of his time?

  Plainly, this binary formulation of the issue is intended to trigger the president’s core view of himself as a warrior for Good, his evangelical belief that he is “called to” the battle against Evil. And if the president and the country he leads are to continue to be on the side of Good—and if history is to view the president as such—then there is no choice but to confront Iran regardless of the costs and irrespective of the opinion of the world or even of Americans themselves. The president’s only other choice is to follow in the weak and amoral footsteps of Nazi-appeaser Neville Chamberlain.

  Bush supporters eager for war with Iran have dramatically escalated their rhetoric in 2006 to all but challenge President Bush to decide whether he will confront this pure Evil or wear the shameful mantle of Chamberlain. Interviewed by Human Events Magazine in February 2006, Newt Gingrich stressed the equivalency between the threats posed by Iran and Nazi Germany and expressly challenged the president:

  This is 1935 and [Iranian president] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as close to Adolf Hitler as we’ve seen. We now know who they are—the question is who we are. Are we Baldwin or Churchill?…

  The current behavior of the bureaucracy is perfectly compatible with Stanley Baldwin and totally incompatible with Winston Churchill. My hope is that the President will impose his will. Short of the President’s imposing his will, it is inconceivable that the current system would be prepared to take on the Iranian government.

  Bill Kristol—the neoconservative pundit, Fox News contributor, and Weekly Standard editor who exerted great influence in persuading Americans to support an invasion of Iraq—is not the slightest bit deterred, or ashamed, by the fact that virtually every bit of prewar wisdom he offered led to disaster and every prognostication he made was dead wrong. To the contrary, like Gingrich, Kristol is again parading around with pretenses of great warrior nobility and military wisdom, this time leading the war dance against all of the new Hitlers in Iran.

  In an April 2006 column in The Weekly Standard, Kristol issued an overt call to war against Iran, and he was unable to refrain from dredging up the only historical event that he knows in the first paragraph:

  In the Spring of 1936, seventy years ago—Hitler’s Germany occupied the Rhineland. France’s Léon Blum denounced this as “unacceptable.” But France did nothing. As did the British. And the United States.

  Kristol argued that avoiding France’s 1930s appeasement mistakes and those of other Western nations “would mean serious preparation for possible military action [against Iran]—including real and urgent operational planning for bombing strikes and for the consequences of such strikes.” And not only must we go to war against Iran, we must do so quickly:

  It is not “moral progress” to put off serious planning for military action to a later date, probably in less favorable circumstances, when the Iranian regime has been further emboldened, our friends in the region more disheartened, and allies more confused by years of fruitless diplomacy than they would be by greater clarity and resolution now.

  For good measure, Kristol added that anyone who opposes his mindlessly militaristic approach toward Iran is guilty, of course, of seeking to “appease the mullahs.” And indeed, ever since the invasion of Iraq, Kristol has been insisting that the United States is only at the beginning, not the end, of the list of countries it intends to attack. In an April 2003 Weekly Standard column, he pronounced:

  The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably. But these are only two battles. We are only at the end of the beginning in the war on terror and terrorist states.

  Similarly, the American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Rubin, on National Review’s blog in October 2006, wrote, “Clinton administration attempts to engage the Taliban and the North Korean regime were folly. Any attempt to do likewise with Iran would be equally inane. Certain regimes cannot be appeased.” Equating “an attempt to avoid new wars” with “cowardly appeasement of Evil” is a constant theme among Bush supporters seeking to persuade the president to wage war on Iran.

  This sort of cheap equivalence between Hitler and the tyrant du jour is, among other things, rather disorienting. One minute we are told that Hitler is a singular manifestation of unparalleled Evil to which nothing should ever be compared, lest the uniqueness of his atrocities be minimized. The next minute, though, there are nothing but Hitler spawns running around everywhere, and we need to wage war against each of them in order to avoid suffering the fate of 1938 Czechoslovakia and Neville Chamberlain. In a 2005 National Review article entitled “Nazi Nonsense,” Jonah Goldberg wrote:

  Hitler holds our fascination because of his singular villainy. But this shouldn’t crowd out our ability to make distinctions. Hitler is supposed to define the outer limits of evil, not the lowest threshold. Something can be very, very bad and be far “better” than the Holocaust.

  This is the very same Jonah Goldberg who is soon to publish a book entitled Liberal Fascism: The Totalitarian Temptation from Mussolini to Hillary Clinton—with a cover showing a happy face marred by Adolf Hitler’s mustache and which, according to his publisher, “draws striking parallels between historic fascism and contemporary liberal doctrines.” But what would appear to a rational person to be a painfully glaring inconsistency actually illustrates the tactic used frequently by prowar Bush followers. In particular, many of the same people who appear to believe that they have proprietary rights over the invocation of Hitler and Nazism and who issue stern condemnations against its use by others, blithely proceed to wield Hitler and Nazi imagery, freely and recklessly, in order to manipulate public opinion and provoke new wars that they crave.

  Charles Krauthammer—one of the most vocal cheerleaders in favor of invading Iraq who also threatened a war with Syria within less than two months after Iraq was invaded—has also now extended his warmongering rhetoric to Iran. In an April 2006 issue of Time magazine, Krauthammer claimed that the Iranian president believes that “the end of history is only two or three years away” and pronounced him to be “exceedingly dangerous.” In his May 2006 Washington Post column, he described Iranian leaders as those “who would finish Hitler’s work” and claimed that Hitler’s “successors now reside in Tehran.” Krauthammer dutifully raised the clichéd and plainly inapposite analogy that the U.S. is currently in 1938, facing the choice of whether to confront or appease the “new Hitlers”:

  Last week Bernard Lewis, America’s dean of Islamic studies, who just turned 90 and remembers the 20th century well, confessed that for the first time he feels it is 1938 again. He did not need to add that in 1938, in the face of the gathering storm—a fanatical, aggressive, openly declared enemy of the West, and most determinedly of the Jews—the world did nothing.

  This single-minded equation of Iran with Nazi Germany falls from the mouths of some of our highest elected officials. On September 18, 2006, Ohio Republican senator George Voinovich said during a Foreign Relations committee meeting: “Ahmadinejad—I call him Ahmadin-a-head—I think he’s a Hitler type of person…. He’s a, he’s a—we all know what he is.”

  When war historian Victor Davis Hanson, an admired figure among the most hawkish compon
ents of the president’s base, was interviewed by right-wing radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt in November 2006, he argued that those who fail to take a sufficiently militaristic stance against Iranians “don’t have the ability to identify evil from good.” On the weekend following the December 2006 hanging of Saddam Hussein, Hanson expressed his desire for more executions of leaders hostile to the United States, including those in Iran and Syria. “Their demise will come soon enough, and only the clips and outtakes of the appeasers will remain,” the bloodthirsty Hanson predicted.

  This is the lexicon invariably employed by the president’s core supporters to attempt to persuade him that more war in general—and specifically war with Iran—is necessary. For the most deluded war cheerleaders, it is always 1938. Hitler is any leader of another country whom we do not like. The New Nazi Germany is any country opposed to U.S. interests or that does not submit fully to American dictates. Appease means “a desire to avoid starting new wars.” Churchill means “an eagerness to wage wars without limitation or restraint on any country one does not like.”

  The leading neoconservative magazine Commentary published a series of essentially identical arguments throughout 2006 advocating war with Iran. The series culminated with a November 2006 all-out call for war by Arthur Herman, a history professor at George Mason University, entitled “Getting Serious About Iran—a Military Option”—a piece that Hewitt hailed as a “must-read.” After reviewing all of the available short-of-war options for deterring Iranian nuclear proliferation, Herman declares, “all of these recommendations fly in the face of reality.” For Herman, nothing short of war with Iran will do.