Bush May Find He’s Running Against Sweep of History

Early April’s good news for the Bush White House is principally economic -- job data suggesting that the November presidential election shouldn’t be driven by high unemployment rates and associated resentments. The bad news, though, is the rising chance that the campaign will echo 20th century contests that were enlivened by voter bitterness over wartime mismanagement or postwar failures.

A year ago, foreign affairs -- the combination of his response to Sept. 11, firmness against terrorism and apparent military success in Iraq -- was the source of President Bush’s highest approval ratings in national polls. His national security credentials looked to be a strong Republican trump for November. Not any more.

An emerging web of interrelated vulnerabilities -- the developing sense that the pre-9/11 White House was inattentive, or worse, to the terrorist threat and Al Qaeda; the Bush family’s business and financial ties to the Saudis and Osama bin Laden clan; the clamor over not finding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction; and administration attempts to blame Saddam Hussein for 9/11 -- threatens to weaken the president’s foreign policy bona fides. Now come the rising chaos in U.S.-occupied Iraq and the lack of a plan to deal with it.

All this is beginning to undercut the president’s approval ratings. One recent poll showed public support for Bush’s handling of Iraq plummeting from 59% in mid-January to just 40% in early April.

Historically, such voter disillusionment has fed incendiary politics. More than virtually any other people, Americans have refought major wars and their unfortunate consequences in postwar election debates. Today’s Iraq-Saudi-9/11 issue appears to be signaling a similar political slugfest.

After World War I, the ostensible “war to end all wars,” Americans were appalled by European bickering and ethnic politics at the Versailles peace conference and voted to stay out of postwar Europe and the new League of Nations. Disenchantment surged again in 1952, after victory in World War II gave way to communist triumphs in Eastern Europe and China, and U.S. troops got bogged down in a stalemated Korean War. In both postwar periods, popular disillusionment translated into political upheaval.

In 1968, anxious politicians and voters pushed for peace plans and strategies to end the Vietnam War. Parenthetically, the Democrats lost the White House again that year, just as they had in 1920 and 1952. Then in 1992, George H.W. Bush became the first 20th century president to be defeated after an international military success. The victory lost luster when Hussein was left in power and debate flared over Bush’s prewar policies of helping to arm Iraq.

In all these elections, public concern over wartime miscalculations or unexpected postwar chaos or revolution ballooned enough to convince voters to change parties in the White House, though the economies of the times were recovering or prosperous. Voters spurned false “war” analogies about not changing horses in midstream. One could say that they opted to change guides mid-disaster.

In terms of postwar debacles, the spreading uprising and lawlessness in Iraq could rival unstable Europe in 1919-20, the expansion of communism after World War II and the breakdown of U.S. power after Vietnam.

Current polls show that half or more of respondents in 13 foreign nations believe the conflict in Iraq has undermined the war on terrorism and that the U.S. has become less trustworthy. Just as his father was politically embarrassed in 1991-92 by his prewar coziness with Iraq, President Bush seems to have been ill-served by his personal grudge against Iraq and his family’s political and business connections to the Saudi royal family and the wealthy Bin Ladens.

Indeed, the “Arab connection” may be one explanation for the administration’s apparent pre- 9/11 inattention to the terrorist threat. In response to a series of questions last week by 9/11 commission member John F. Lehman about Saudi Arabia supporting radical Islamic schools and impeding U.S. investigations of Al Qaeda, Condoleezza Rice testified that she had little knowledge of such activities before the attacks.

The 9/11 commission reportedly will ask Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and a former acting FBI director, Thomas Pickard, about arrangements to fly out members of the Bin Laden family and other apprehensive Saudis from the United States immediately after the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

It’s tempting to suggest that, by comparison, the war-related and postwar failures at issue in 1920, 1952 and 1968 were less personally tied to individuals. But the Bushes’ apparent deceits span two generations, two presidencies and two Iraqi wars. By early April, the president’s approval ratings for dealing with terrorism had fallen to 53%. It’s possible that the public could be even more sour six months hence as election day draws nigh.

David Griffin, a professor at the Claremont School of Theology, has published a book titled “The New Pearl Harbor.” He contends that U.S. officials must have had at least some knowledge of what was coming on 9/11. The public is still far from ready to buy this kind of allegation. But who would have imagined a year ago that in April 2004 we’d be watching a White House beleaguered by chaos in Iraq and hyper-defensive about its pre-9/11 preparedness for a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

The 1920 debate over the proposed League of Nations and flawed postwar map of war-torn Europe was fierce, as was the name-calling in 1952 over how a U.S. victory in WWII had turned into communist gains. The mess in Vietnam helped to shape the 1968 election and echoed into 1972. But this year, the records of two Bush administrations in the Persian Gulf and the enigma of 9/11 could loom as large -- and with their own unique sweep.