Iraq’s Success Warrants a Reexamination of George W. Bush’s Presidency
Who was the most hated U.S. president during his presidency? I know what you’re thinking, MAGA fans: no, it’s not Donald Trump. No, blue voters, it’s not Barack Obama either. Richard Nixon? Herbert Hoover? No again. Give up? Arguably, the president most despised during his time in office was Abraham Lincoln. That’s right, the one who now sits atop the presidential pantheon was once the most detested chief executive in our nation’s history. It just goes to show you how time tempers emotional rushes to judgment and alters perspective.
The reason Lincoln was viewed so poorly by many of his contemporary fellow Americans was because he was squarely responsible for the War between the States (Civil War). Lincoln’s election as the first Republican president – that Party having been established primarily to end slavery – prompted several Southern states to secede, knowing that Lincoln was determined to end their slaveholding ways. Rather than recognize their new nation, the Confederate States of America, Lincoln insisted they had no right to leave, and he went to war over it. Southerners despised Lincoln because they viewed him as an improper meddler who ransacked their economy, and Northerners resented him for leading us into a war that caused vast losses of life, limb, and property.
It was only after the smoke cleared, and then some, when Americans came to acknowledge that Lincoln did the right thing: that slavery had to end, once and for all, even if it meant a deadly war and extra-Constitutional measures.
A far more recent president, George W. Bush, also suffered in approval ratings because he took us to war: the War in Iraq, in 2003. Like the Civil War, it was a war of choice; we simply could’ve looked the other way. We could’ve ignored the information provided to us by British intelligence, that Iraq’s leader, Saddam Hussein, was purchasing uranium in Africa, to levels so high that it could only mean one thing: he was preparing to build Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). It was no secret that Hussein would have relished at the prospect of such a weapon – whether launched by him or by terrorists to whom he would have sold it – being used to attack the United States. The naysayers all piled on against Bush once no WMDs were found after our invasion, and our troops became sitting ducks as legions of jihadists attacked them for infiltrating their holy land. Bush’s popularity plummeted, and he left office a much-weakened president, after previously enjoying a recordbreaking 90 percent approval rating.
Fast forward two decades later and, lo and behold, Iraq is now widely being perceived as a success. The United Nations recently described Iraq’s progress as “unrecognizable and remarkable.” According to Gallup, whereas only 34 percent of Iraqis felt safe walking around in their neighborhoods at night in the early years following the U.S. invasion and ensuing regime change, that number has soared to 81 percent. Gallup also reported that a majority of Iraqis trust the government and financial institutions, and 82 percent have faith in the military and the police. Those numbers are impressive for any nation, let alone one that was in shambles 20 years ago. The economy and jobs are by far the most important issues on Iraqis’ minds, with safety and security a mere 5 percent. Those are also the priorities of nations considered to be functional, including the United States; it’s not that price of eggs and gas aren’t important, but they pale in comparison to worrying about leaving home and stepping on a landmine.
Moreover, Iraq is quickly rising on the international Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, education, and overall quality of life.
None of this is to suggest that Iraq is now a thriving democracy and a vacationer’s getaway paradise. But it’s also not another Iran anymore. There isn’t a leader at the helm who despises the United States, nor is Iraq a bellicose nation that needs to be reined in.
All that, courtesy of George W. Bush. If you could blame him then, you can thank him now.
It’s rather unlikely that Bush will rise to presidential preeminence the way Lincoln did. Other important matters, such as the Bush administration’s failure to foresee the Great Recession of 2008 ahead of time, haven’t vindicated Bush over time. It’s not as if the same case can be made as with the Iraq War; the recession didn’t benefit us in the long run any more than it did in the short run.
Nonetheless, Iraq’s substantial improvements underscore presidential historians’ credo: wait at least 20 years until a president has left office before you fully evaluate him. By that account, we still have almost three years to go before we ought to rank Bush vis-à-vis his predecessors.
We’ve become too comfortable with the oversimplified notion that ‘nation building’ is categorically bad. Hardly anyone nowadays wishes that Lincoln hadn’t taken as strong a stance against slavery and secession as he did, because that could have really changed the course of American history over the past century and a half for the worst. That was our earliest effort at nation building, and ‘regime change’.
As for the Iraq War, not only Iraqis, but their Middle East neighbors, and more broadly the United States and every other peace-loving nation in the world, are better off because Hussein was ousted from power way back when, and his regime no longer reigns. In hindsight, can we really say that the effort wasn’t worth it?
Folks may want to consider that next time someone criticizes Bush – or Trump, for that matter, for his efforts to neuter Iran.