War and the American Presidency

"In 1998, Donald Rumsfeld, [Paul] Wolfowitz, [Richard] Perle were among the eighteen signers of an open letter to President Clinton arguing that regime change in Iraq 'needs to become the aim of American foreign policy'." This quote from world-respected author and one-man political think tank, Arthur Schesinger shows that these individuals were looking for an excuse that 9/11 gave them, to invade Iraq. They began beating the tocsins of war shortly after to create their vision of a middle eastern democracy under a pax americana. Arthur Schlesinger points out in detail how the Bush administration pressured the CIA for raw intelligence from which they would make an interpretation, how the reasons for invading Iraq kept changing, and how the White House kept contradicting previous statements. The reader can only come to the conclusion that the Bush Doctrine is an utter failure, the invasion of Iraq was not to fight terrorism but to satisfy a right-wing vision, that we were lied to about an association between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden, that we lied to about WMD. Even after this collaboration and weapons failed to materialize, Schlesinger states "the Bush administration is left with liberation, which it had once deemed an insufficient justification for putting American lives at risk." I found the first three chapters captivating, but I gave this four stars because of a need to keep a dictionary by my side. The author's vocabulary far exceeds mine, and those of fewer words may find this annoying or challenging. I was also annoyed by the author's use of French without translation: "Nous Sommes Tous Americains." (We are all Americans.) In some places, I had to stop and absorb his insight--a more worthwhile pursuit. But, if you are looking for a powerful and persuasive argument against our government and its actions, Arthur Schlesinger gives it to you. Read it, and soak it up. Finally, remember the words of George Bush: "There was no viable exit strategy....Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish." That was from George Herbert Walker Bush (41)!

Succinct, sensible, scholarly not sneering...if only George II had chosen the likes of Mr. Schlesigner for his advisors instead of the neocon nincompoops who've set in motion the waning of our military & economic power, influence, and prestige. The accident of history that gave us a president with no sense of history along with a messianic mission has done more damage to our country than the communists of past or the terrorists of present. This book cries out to be read by every thoughtful, reflective, informed American. So much for any sales in Crawford, even though it's only 7 chapters and 150 pages...perhaps if W. could read a chapter a week he'd finish while still on vacation!

Avoiding polemic, this simple (but hardly simplistic) and slim book examines the 2000 Bush election and administration through the lens of history. The first three chapters discuss how Bush's foreign policy adventures are not wholly unprecedented: a unilateral fervor has always formed the core of American diplomacy. Schlesinger first provides a concise overview of how American policy has changed from nineteenth-century isolationism to Wilson's abortive multilateralism through Roosevelt and Truman's success in preparing Americans for a larger world role. He confirms that the United States has always insisted on its right to "preemptive" war but insists that the new Bush Doctrine is more accurately called "preventive" war, which "refers to potential, future, therefore speculative threats." Schlesinger then revisits the thesis he introduced in "The Imperial Presidency," and finds that the most recent executive actions have taken on a new look; "the American Presidency has come to see itself in messianic terms as the appointed savior of a world whose unpredictable dangers call for rapid and incessant deployment of men, arms, and decisions behind a wall of secrecy." In spite of the book's title, its second half is concerned with matters other than war and broader than the American presidency: the instability caused by the electoral college (he proposes a solution), the future of democracy itself (his verdict is optimistic), and the "use" of history in determining future events. On this last issue, he marshals an array of arguments against the self-defeating prophecies of Marxism and concludes, persuasively, that history is a "negative" model: "It instructs us not, like Marxism, in the things we must do, but in the things we must not do--unless we wish to repeat the mistakes of our ancestors." Schlesinger's reinforces his political observations with historical anecdotes, trenchant quotes, and a solid grounding in American jurisprudence. A certain old-fashioned quality pervades his opinions, and usually this traditionalism is admirable. I take issue only with his predisposition against the "electronic town hall"; he claims in an aside that the "Internet has done little thus far to foster the reasoned exchanges that in Madison's words 'refine and enlarge the public views.'" One senses that Schlesinger is judging the Internet secondhand by its excesses (on both right and left) rather than by intimate knowledge of the online political community. If anything--regardless of the outcome of any single election and in spite of the blogs that promote rumor over reality--the Internet has, in a remarkably short time, increased citizen participation in and knowledge of politics. Indeed, it is the traditional news media, with its penchant for entertainment and oversimplification, that has failed us. Yet this quibble is negligible, and this short little book does much to put our current crises in perspective, reminding us that history "supplies an antidote to e

If the American public is suffering from a lack of information about the history of the presidency and the balance of power, especially prior to a national election, I don't see how a discussion of specific historical incidents can do anything but add to the lively debate in assessing the Bush presidency and the preemptive doctrine that occasioned the invasion of Iraq. In the current political climate, dissent is under fire, accused of increasing the danger for our troops in Iraq. Recent statements from Washington indicate that such dissent may border on the treasonous. Schlesinger's book is a timely response to such assertions, because the author sites specific incidents in American history, making a strong case for the necessity of open dialog in the service of the democratic process. The current preemptive doctrine is worthy of careful consideration. Schlesinger posits that military might is no substitute for wisdom and can only accomplish limited goals. Peace through the prevention of war is replaced with peace via preventive war, an entirely different prospect, with its own inherent problems. Even Truman opined the foolhardiness of a concept that war can only be prevented by war, "You can't 'prevent' anything by war except peace." Preventive war depends upon accurate intelligence; certainly, it is human nature to guess the future from the experiences of the past. But do we use the historic perspective to create insight or justification for our agenda? The future will not yield itself to the vision of one man or one nation; hence, extreme caution is imperative. We must constantly monitor the inherent dangers of power and the arrogance it breeds. Nixon was the last president to exercise the concept of "imperial presidency", when the balance of power is upset by the executive branch, via foreign policy decisions, with a lack of congressional oversight and the aid of the attorney general. But Osama bin Laden reopened the doors of imperial presidency for our generation, John Ashcroft at the helm, promoting the Patriot Act I and II, which must allow open debate by the Congress before any restrictions are made on the freedoms we enjoy. Certain question arise, in reading this book and considering the problems at hand; for example, if war does nurture the concept of the imperial presidency, and certainly the events of 9/11 have made the public more vulnerable and willing to take direction from our leaders, do a democratic people have a moral obligation to stop dissent during wartime? Is this the example shown by our forefathers? And, in a nation born of dissent, what is the nature of patriotism? Schlesinger answers all these questions in detail. The answers are surprisingly informative, certainly worth consideration. Both popular and electoral votes were at issue in the last election and may be again, so the author includes the pros and cons of the arguments as the framers of the constitution grappled with the safest way to preserve the wil

Schlesinger's book is elegant, fluid, controlled, and yet impassioned. A must read by one of the few writers on politics whose extraordinary public service and writings all but obligates intelligent citizens to weigh his opinions carefully, regardless of whether we end up fully agreeing with him (and many times, I haven't). The previous review - which cynically stretches and scrunches history to fit the procrustean bed of the reviewer's neoconservative ideology - has a rather odd perception of what Schlesinger is talking about. For example, what Chablis might have to do with the topic of Schlesinger's book truly escapes me, although it must be important because the right mentions the wine with tiresome regularity. Y'know, it's time to break open that bottle of Ripple '77 you've been hoarding for special occasions and think up some new cliches, folks!