The 'good Texan' test

The 'good Texan' test

TIM HARPER (Tornto Star)

WASHINGTON—It has neither the gravitas nor the grandeur one would expect of a label for the leader of the world's most powerful nation.

But George W. Bush bestowed it upon himself.

"I'm the master of low expectations," he told reporters aboard Air Force One last week.

He was referring to the way he dampened prospects heading into a trilateral summit in search of Middle East peace with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

But it neatly summed up expectations at home as a wartime president prepared for a peacemaking, fence-mending global jaunt that took him to six nations in seven days.

It started with a speech outlining his transatlantic vision in Krakow, and finished with a pledge to unearth the "truth" on Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal of chemical and biological weapons when he touched down in Doha, Qatar.

In between, there was a warming of relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg; a pledge to put past differences behind him after a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac at the G8 summit in Evian, France; lots of meticulously staged photos with Arab leaders in Egypt; and an Aqaba, Jordan, summit that provided the first couple of kilometres of his "road map for peace" in the Middle East.

How meagre were expectations before Bush headed out for a week of his plain "Texas talk" and personal, hands-on diplomacy?

On the eve of his key summit in Aqaba, he told reporters he had good relations with the "Gulf Coast countries," confusing Gulf Coast states such as Texas and Florida with the Persian Gulf countries he was discussing.

And so what if he couldn't wrap his head, or tongue, around the words "continuous" and "contiguous" — first using the former when he meant the latter, when his private words were caught by an Egyptian television network, then tripping all over "contiguous" before finally spitting it out at Wednesday's press conference?

"He surprised us and he surprised us in a positive sense," says Richard Fairbanks, a senior analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Since his election in 2000, Bush has forged a reputation as a president who has little interest in the chit-chat of international summitry.

He used the G8 meetings to hijack official agendas and push for his war against terrorism, just as he'd sucked the oxygen out of NATO meetings with his clarion calls for allies in the war in Iraq.

International relations for Bush often boil down to personalities, trust, his level of comfort with those in the room and his official litmus test — whether the leader with whom he is dealing would make "a good Texan."

Thus, the surprise at his performance at the Aqaba summit.

Even Friday's announcement by Hamas, that it would quit talks with Abbas on ending anti-Israeli attacks, was largely shrugged off here as something to be expected, not something that would derail the road map, which envisions Palestinian statehood by 2005 if a number of conditions are met.

Under the plan, Palestinians must disarm and dismantle their militant groups. Abbas expressed optimism he could reach that goal through talks.

For his part, Sharon must begin dismantling settlements. And after his meeting with Bush and Abbas, he said he would move to end some "unauthorized outposts" in the West Bank.

The president was drawing criticism at home for not more actively addressing the Middle East process, making his full-fledged dive into the tricky whirlpool of peace-brokering all the riskier.

Walter Reich, the Yitzhak Rabin memorial professor of international affairs at George Washington University, says Bush's sudden immersion in the process is part of a fundamental reshaping of the Middle East envisioned by his administration.

It also comes at a time of unprecedented American presence in the region, with U.S. troops the occupying power in Iraq.

"The president has a lot at stake here," says Reich.

"He has performed two great feats of military prowess, in Afghanistan and Iraq. He understands, however, that in the long run, what will be even more important for his legacy will be peace."

Bush has long had a strong personal relationship with Sharon.

The Israeli prime minister, map clutched in hand to illustrate Israel's vulnerability, took the then-governor of Texas on a tour of the West Bank years ago, a hands-off briefing that had an impact on Bush.

Sharon is direct. Bush has the same blunt manner and that explains the rapport between the two, analysts say.

According to aides quoted in the Washington Post, Bush was firm with Sharon in a meeting last year after the president had called the Israeli a "man of peace."

That led to a backlash by Palestinians who were incensed by the actions of the Israeli army during the most recent uprising.

In a private meeting, Bush is said to have told Sharon: "I said you were a `man of peace.' I want you to know I took immense crap for that."

The message was clear.

Doug Bandow, a senior analyst with the Cato Institute, an independent Washington think-tank, says Bush deserves credit for the heavy hand he is using on the hard-line Israeli PM.

"He has pushed Sharon much harder than many of us thought he would. Bush seems to know that any peace must be forged by the principals in the region. Previous presidents have tried to impose a peace and when it unravelled, we would inevitably be blamed."

Bandow acknowledges the unusually positive reviews for Bush, but notes that the president could merely have landed in the region at the right time because both sides might be exhausted following the protracted violence and much more amenable to peace than they had been.

Ivo Daalder, a senior foreign policy analyst at the Brookings Institution and director of European affairs for the National Research Council under Bill Clinton, says Bush judges world leaders by a personal "loyalty meter."

"He has a sense of who is loyal to him in a personal perspective, as well as to the United States with regard to policies, and Iraq triggers this loyalty meter in a very, very important way," Daalder told a symposium on the eve of the G8 summit.

Daalder says the actions of various nations in the Iraqi war have moved them up and down the Bush loyalty meter.

"One thing one often forgets about George W. Bush is that his foreign policy is very personality driven. It is not just about American power and American interests, it is also, and most importantly, about the people that are part of the relationship."

Bush spoke about this himself in a rare encounter with reporters as he left Jordan bound for Qatar.

"I'm not a very formal guy to begin with," he said. "I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things. The meetings are informal, they're kind of relaxed. I think one of my styles is trying to relax people."

He said he knows he can trust Sharon and is getting the same impression about Abbas.

It is a dynamic that has kept him close to Putin.

"I try to tell the truth, put it right out there on the table for everybody to understand what's expected," Bush said.

"I remember (being) asked the question, `Do you trust Vladimir Putin?

"Well, the answer is yes. I didn't hesitate because during my meeting with him, I had developed an interesting rapport.

"My instincts were such that this is a guy I can trust. History will prove me right. It doesn't necessarily mean he has to agree with everything that I say, but I trust his word.

"I've spent enough time with Ariel Sharon to know he's the same kind of guy.

"When he says something, he means it. I'm getting the same sense about Prime Minister Abbas."

Bush also said he practised a little amateur analysis on Abbas and Sharon, getting them out of the meeting room and onto the lawn at the Jordanian resort to "talk about stuff."

He said he observed the interplay between the two men.

"Did they have the capacity to relax in each other's presence, for starters? And I felt they did. In other words, the body language was positive.

"There wasn't a lot of hostility or suspicion."

Every U.S. president over the past half-century has been sucked into the peacemaking vortex in the Middle East.

Every president has failed, yet American voters expect their leaders to continue the effort, something the Bush White House now accepts.

Says Fairbanks: "The debate among many political-watchers here has been that, with an election coming up, this was a `lose-lose' — that if you put your hand in that wringer, you only end up with bloody fingers.

"But that view has changed in the White House."

The search for Middle East peace ultimately became one of the obsessions of Clinton's presidential terms and, finally, one of his failures.

In his recently published book, The Clinton Wars, former Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal relates one of the former president's last phone calls, from Arafat.

Arafat thanked Clinton for all peace efforts, Blumenthal writes, calling him "a great man."

"The hell I am," Clinton replied. "I'm a colossal failure, and you made me one."

But, says Reich, Clinton and another Democrat, Jimmy Carter, found themselves bogged down in the minutiae of agreements, dealing with boundaries and stipulations and square footage.

Bush takes the big-picture view of the situation.

He said last week he is a "great delegator" and admitted he relies on Secretary of State Colin Powell to "clear the underbrush" before he arrives on the scene.

He also said he would not hesitate to "ride herd" on the parties to ensure the terms of the road map are being adhered to, using another Texas term he admitted may not have been understood by either Middle Eastern leader.

"The Middle East is a case of `damned if you do, damned if you don't,'" says Reich.

"You are criticized for staying out of it, but inevitably, one side or the other will find they have been treated unfairly and Bush will pay a price."

The Post quoted unnamed aides last week as saying the "broad strokes" approach favoured by Bush means he has no interest in the details needed to forge a peace, an approach many believe will ultimately lead to failure.

Some of those aides also told the newspaper they felt the president had a "naïve" attitude toward the historical grievances in the region.

Fairbanks, who was Ronald Reagan's chief negotiator for Middle East peace, dismisses that talk because he has heard it before.

"People thought Reagan was a stupid old cowboy actor," he says.

"The view was, `We'll teach him a thing or two,' and one-by-one, world leaders would leave cross-eyed by the warmth and the charm in the White House and over the fact they had been twisted around by this stupid old guy."

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