www.thestar.ca
The Toronto Star
Mar 4 2003
01:00 AM
`Bullying' Bush hard to stomach for some
Friends, enemies alike see Bush as arrogant. Even allies telling president to tone down the rhetoric
By LINDA DIEBEL
WASHINGTON—Why can't President George W. Bush seem to win friends and influence people these days?
Is he a bully at the head of an imperial presidency?
Or a no-holds-barred, straight-shootin' Texan whose friends — including Canada's Jean Chrétien and Mexico's Vicente Fox — just don't like how he's talking about Iraq?
A debate over the president's style, long simmering in anti-war capitals, finally has erupted in Washington. Friends, enemies and pundits alike are weighing in, as Bush seems to plow headlong to war, with fewer allies and greater setbacks.
What really appears to irritate is that he does it so grandly, without apology.
It's one thing for leading anti-war advocate Nelson Mandela to call Bush "arrogant," as the former South African president did so recently in Johannesburg.
Now it's coming from senior Republicans on Capitol Hill.
"The responsibility of leadership is to persuade, not to impugn the motives of those who disagree with you," senior Republican Senator Charles Hagel of Nebraska told congressional hearings last week.
"(The administration) is seen as bullying people. You can't do that to democracies. You can't do that to partners and allies. It isn't going to work."
The Bush administration is smarting from Turkey's refusal to allow U.S. troops to invade Iraq from its soil. And, at the U.N., key Security Council members remain opposed to the U.S. arm-twisting push for a clear declaration of war against Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
Even Bush's "coalition of the willing" is frayed. Last week, Spain's Jose Maria Aznar, who is a staunch ally of Bush, was practically on his knees begging Bush to tone down the war rhetoric in Europe.
At heart, though, is a simple question. What does style matter? If Bush walked more softly, would he have more countries onside for war?
No, says Allan Lichtman, professor emeritus of history at American University in Washington.
"With Bush, what you see is what you get," he told the Star. "But even a more toned-down style would not change recalcitrant nations because there is a fundamental difference of substance and culture."
Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think-tank, agrees.
"These are serious representatives of their countries. It's not some private club. They have likes and dislikes, of course, but it doesn't affect the bottom line," he said last night.
Political analyst Lewis Wolfson thinks Bush's "Texas style is one Americans are not used to in the presidency.
"But I think that anyone in politics has to sort of tone things down at certain moments. I don't think that's out of the question," he added.
It's not as if Bush has made a secret of his beliefs.
"You've probably learned by now I don't believe there are many shades of gray in this war," he said last year.
"You're either with us or against us.
"You're either evil, or you're good."
Still, Bush's friends are symbolically tearing their hair out.
Chrétien is trying to broker a U.N. compromise that would give Iraq more time to disarm. In Mexico City Saturday, he appeared impatient with the latest White House insistence that there must be "regime change" as well as disarmament in Iraq.
Former Chrétien press secretary Peter Donolo said the Turkish vote shows the limitations of "megaphone diplomacy."
"But I can see Bush's frustration," he added.
"He's getting tired of (Saddam's) excuses. I wouldn't want to be in his shoes right now. The trend lines seem to be moving away from him, and I'm sure he's exasperated."
Maybe so. But tone it down, Aznar told Bush last week.
"I did tell the president that we need a lot of Powell and not much of Rumsfeld," said Aznar, referring to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Rumsfeld has Europeans — especially Security Council opponents France and Germany — fuming over his remarks that characterized France and Germany as part of an "old Europe" out of sync with the rest of the European Union and NATO.
"The more Powell speaks and the less Rumsfeld speaks, that wouldn't be a bad thing altogether," said Aznar.
And, in the coup de grâce of public criticism, even George H.W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, last week gave his son's foreign policy a subtle kick.
In a speech at Tufts University, the senior Bush talked about the "unprecedented international coalition" he built before attacking Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
That coalition does not exist today. But, according to the New York Times, the elder Bush said it was "totally false" to accuse his son of wanting to "go it alone, rush to war" with Iraq.
It was easier to build a coalition back then, he said, in what the Times described as a "nuanced" answer.
"The objective was clearer."
In diplo-speak, that's pretty potent language.
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