Don’t write off President Bush just yet

By John C. Bersia

Some critics have described President George W. Bush’s just-concluded swing through Europe as irrelevant, contending that the region essentially disregards him. Moreover, the critics continue, his visit bordered on delusional. After years of tension, how could Bush possibly have had the nerve to walk the streets of European capitals with such confidence and toss out bold, foreign-policy goals for the near future?

Well, let us not too hastily jump to conclusions about the trip, the Bush administration’s remaining possibilities and the president’s legacy.

For all the shortcomings of his time in office, Bush is neither irrelevant nor delusional. In fact, he may well have signaled the flowering of U.S.-European relations, even though that will not happen on his watch. Whether the winner in November’s presidential election is U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic candidate, or his Republican counterpart, U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, America’s ties with Europe are likely to improve. For that matter, so are U.S. connections with the rest of the world.

In addition, the door has not yet closed on the Bush White House. In a half-year’s time, much could happen. A lame-duck president is not without capability.

Consider, for example, Bush’s promise to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East before he leaves office. Skeptics dismiss that idea as foolhardy, but former President Bill Clinton had a similar objective during his last year as chief executive. Although his bid for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement eventually unraveled, Clinton came surprisingly close to success.

The possibility also exists for Bush to face unexpected developments, which takes me back to his first campaign for president. At that time — including during a lengthy, foreign-policy discussion that I had with him shortly before he assumed the presidency — Bush held views on various global issues that appeared unchangeable. As two examples, he described China as a strategic competitor and underscored his aversion to nation-building.

A year later, in response to the provocations of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush was welcoming China as more of a strategic partner and had embarked on a major nation-building exercise in Afghanistan. He now includes among his accomplishments the fledgling democratic system in that country, along with a similar undertaking in Iraq.

History’s verdict

Of course, many people disagree with Bush’s assessments, particularly in the case of Iraq. However, the fact of the matter is that we do not know what ultimately will emerge from that grim conflict. We will have to wait for history’s verdict.

Aside from Iraq, Bush will have and deserve credit for taking decisive, comprehensive action against terrorism. Again, there may be differences of opinion as to how that struggle has been waged. But no president before Bush was willing to identify terrorism as a global scourge and confront it in a sustained, large-scale fashion. If his predecessors had taken such forceful action early in the contemporary era of terrorism, we might have been spared the horrors of 9/11.

In that fight, which will last for many more years, Europe has been a staunch and effective partner. I spend more time thinking about and appreciating the continent’s cooperation with the United States in the war against terrorism than I do on its criticism of the Bush administration’s handling of Iraq. Long after the situation in Iraq is resolved, terrorism will remain as a collective problem.

Looking toward the future, my hope is that the U.S.-European partnership to combat terrorism will become the norm, enabling the two sides to maximize unity and minimize divisiveness.

X John C. Bersia, who won a Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing for the Orlando Sentinel in 2000, is the special assistant to the president for global perspectives at the University of Central Florida. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.