Detractors Find Bush Has Issues

Until a month ago, President Bush held the maddening complexities of the Arab- Israeli conflict mostly at arms’ length. But since he decided to plunge into Middle East peacemaking, Bush has immersed himself in the details of diplomacy to a degree that has surprised even some of his aides.

When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was in the region trying to achieve a cease-fire, Bush was on the telephone to him at least once a day--and checked in with his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, as often as 12 times daily. When Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah visited recently, Bush spent five hours with him and struck a deal on a joint U.S.-Saudi effort to arrange peace talks. And when a deal was in sight to withdraw Israeli troops from the Ramallah headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Bush telephoned Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to make it happen.

“He’s been engaged directly and intensively,” a senior aide said. “The notion that he wasn’t has always been mistaken.”

Bush’s newfound command of an issue where his experience was skimpy may appear to conflict with his well-earned reputation as a man allergic to details and nuance.

But the president’s learning curve on the Arab-Israeli conflict follows a pattern that has become evident on an array of thorny issues, such as nuclear weapon strategy, tariffs on steel imports and funding for stem cell research.

According to aides and others, Bush sometimes resists wading into a new subject but eventually demands briefings from his staff, listens to debates among Cabinet members and ends up knowing more than some detractors might imagine.

“I think the president’s active engagement in most of these issues is a result of the reality of the responsibility of governance,” said Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.), who criticized Bush last year for being insufficiently engaged in policy details.

Overcoming Lack

of Background

During his six years as governor of Texas, Bush succeeded largely by sticking to a few broad themes and saw little need to bone up on foreign policy. And that showed during his presidential campaign, when a reporter ambushed him with a pop quiz and Bush was unable to name the then-obscure leader of Pakistan. Bush knows Gen. Pervez Musharraf now.

“A lot of what he’s being forced to address as president are issues with which he has had no substantive background, knowledge or experience,” said Texas state Rep. Elliott Naishtat, a longtime Bush watcher and (as a Democrat) a sometime critic.

In a sense, Bush appears to have learned his foreign policy one issue at a time, as each forced its way to the front burner.

He boned up on nuclear strategy during the 2000 campaign, when he decided that making detailed proposals on missile defense would make him a more credible candidate for commander in chief. He learned China policy during the crisis caused by Beijing’s seizure of a damaged U.S. surveillance plane in April 2001. He studied Russia when he saw that only personal diplomacy would persuade Russian President Vladimir V. Putin to accept U.S. deployment of anti-missile systems. And he took a crash course in Islamic terrorism and Central Asian politics after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, learning not only the name of Musharraf but also those of a dozen wanted Al Qaeda figures whose profiles he kept on a “scorecard” in his desk.

As part of his current focus on the Middle East, Bush will host Sharon for talks Tuesday. The next day, Jordan’s King Abdullah II will visit the White House in what will be Bush’s 13th meeting with an Arab head of state.

Bush’s forays into foreign policy have not been error-free. During the China crisis, his initial instinct was to slam the Chinese publicly, a reaction he--or at least his aides--later regretted. His efforts to win Arab support for U.S. diplomacy in the Middle East weren’t helped by his public endorsement of Sharon as “a man of peace.”

Bush’s approach to new and complex issues appears to follow a rough pattern. After overcoming whatever reluctance he might have had, he focuses on the matter with growing intensity, and eventually immerses himself.

He typically emerges with a stark, black-and-white position, fitting his own preference for clear, “plain-spoken” views. “My job isn’t to try to nuance,” he said last month.

But if his initial, uncomplicated position hits a brick wall, he often bends. Last month, for example, Bush began his Middle East diplomacy with a blunt declaration that Arafat was no longer worth dealing with; he ended up reluctantly rescuing Arafat from the siege of his Ramallah headquarters and renewing U.S. recognition of the guerrilla chief as leader of the Palestinians.

His Instincts Clash

With His Advisors

The resulting picture of Bush is that of a president torn between his conservative gut instincts and the more moderate counsel of his advisors. And, more often than not, he opts for the more moderate path.

Hagel believes that Bush has found a good balance between his heart and his head.

“The presidency represents a gigantic daily conflict of interests that pulls a president from his own passions and beliefs and values on the one hand, and then the reality of an imperfect world on the other that forces a president to make accommodations in order to fulfill the larger and maybe more important objectives,” Hagel said. “I think he has found his center of gravity on a lot of this.”

Only a year ago, as Democrats took control of the Senate--after Sen. James M. Jeffords of Vermont left the GOP to become an independent--Bush was harshly criticized by some Republicans for being disengaged.

“He’s going to have to understand issues better, more deeply, get himself immersed,” Hagel said at the time.

In fact, Bush had begun doing just that, as he considered whether taxpayers should fund embryonic stem cell research. Because of the question’s moral weight for Republican social conservatives, the decision--at the time--loomed as the most politically sensitive of his presidency.

In a flurry of self-education, Bush reached out to scientists, ethicists, physicians and clergy. Even in meetings on other topics, Bush began soliciting opinions on stem cells--including during a birthday party for an employee of the White House medical unit.

More recently, his decision this spring to impose tariffs on foreign steel provided another window into his decision-making.

Given Bush’s fierce support for unfettered world trade, the outcome seemed preordained--but domestic politics complicated matters. The stakes were enormous for steelworkers in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, two key battleground states in the 2000 election--and probably in 2004.

With his closest advisors deeply divided, Bush consulted extensively and even staged a debate in a White House conference room pitting several of his aides against each other.

Eventually, he chose a middle-ground position, imposing three-year tariffs of up to 30% on most imported steel--”temporary safeguards” that he said would give the industry a chance to “restructure.”

Free-trade advocates howled. Bush’s decision threatened to erode his moral authority in pushing other countries to open their markets. But that did not deter him from doing just that three weeks later in Mexico, Peru and El Salvador.

At least some Democrats like the new, more nuanced Bush.

“It’s a surprise to me,” Naishtat said, “but a pleasant surprise. I’d guess a lot of it has to do with him growing and maturing as president and realizing that he’s got to get more immersed in these issues.”