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By Hanoch W. Weber
April 5, 2007
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In 1953, Charles Wilson, then president of General Motors declared: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country". At the time, with General Motors being the premier industrial corporation of the U.S., that statement seemed arguably accurate. As time passed, U.S. industrial power became more diffused, so that no company chairman would dare make such a boast today.
However, in the arena of U.S. and even global politics it can be claimed -- even today -- that what's good for George W. Bush is good for America and good for the free world. How so? Clearly, if the President succeeds -- especially in his foreign policy -- that will improve the prospects for the long-term military, political, and economic interests of the U.S. and its allies in their most urgent task -- winning the global terror war against radical Islam.
For the President to do what's good for his legacy and to save the reputation of his presidency, he needs to overcome several hostile forces. First and foremost is a hostile Congress determined to clip his freedom of action in Iraq and Iran. Second is U.S. public opinion which has become dead set against the war in Iraq. And third is the almost unanimous opposition he faces from almost all other nations -- European allies included -- to his take on the global terror menace, and how to deal with it.
The president is facing at this juncture the essential issue of leadership -- does a leader do what his constituents want, or does he do what he thinks is best for them, even if they don't agree with him as to what that may be. However, that philosophic issue can be rendered moot if one and only one thing happens -- victory. If the president takes actions, even in the face of fierce initial opposition, and if those actions end up being successful soon thereafter and lead to a swift and irreversible victory, then his actions will be lauded as that of a great leader. That is the president's great hope and plan.
Iraq is clearly not the theater any more for a quick irreversible military victory. On the contrary, Iraq is a quagmire that the U.S. has sunk into due to a false reading of Arab culture and of the extent of Arab commitment to terrorism. Mr. Bush assumed Arabs will take to democracy, to freedom and to tolerance the way American do -- setting aside sectarian differences. This was the big mistake in the president's Iraq campaign, as well as in his Roadmap for a Palestinian state living in peace side by side with Israel. The Hamas government's uninhibited resort to violence --internally and externally -- and its unrepentant lust to wipe out Israel, makes the President's Roadmap ludicrously childlike in its naivete.
The quick victory -- the one event that will pull the chestnuts out of the fire -- is a massive all out air strike on the Iranian nuclear facilities and military bases. If such an attack can be executed before Iran gets the bomb, and be successful, the president will go down as the Harry Truman of World War III, the war on global terror. A successful attack on Iran will have an immediate beneficial effect on Iraq. With Iran militarily and politically humbled, it will be feasible to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq -- even letting Iraq be broken up into a Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni state -- in the knowledge that Iran will no longer dare attempt to incorporate the Shiite territory of Iraq onto itself. In effect, a victory over Iran will be a victory in Iraq!
Victory over Iran should be the 24-hour a day focus of President Bush for the next three months. If he succeeds his credibility will be immediately restored, as well as that of the United States -- among its friends, and even more important among its terror foes across the globe. As a by-product, he will go a long way toward setting up the election of a Republican as the next president.
Nothing succeeds like success. Mr. Bush is so low in the public's esteem that he has nothing to lose. It's time for the Texas wildcatter in Mr. Bush to come out -- for his sake, for the sake of America and for the sake of the free world.
Mr. President, go for it!
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