The death of certain political figures, notably those of a vast imperium, is bound to provoke less criticism or critical
insight than soul searching pursuits. With the US in the mauling clutches of Donald J. Trump, the nightmare that was
supposedly never to happen, nostalgia prevails in establishment circles. What ever happened to traditional duplicity and
dynasty politicians, with their sanctimonious call upon the good Sky God benefactor and the messianic mission? The US
Republic, even as it was being emptied of its worth during their tenure, could at least be assured of predictable
corruption. Decay, yes, but on their controlled terms.
The death of the forty-first president, George H.W. Bush was a fine reminder of that point, a man of standing and
missions who could be said, by Time, to be a creature of Aristotle’s “practical wisdom”. A “natural born leader” was he, one “comfortable with dissenting
views” and skilful in his employ of “strong advisers”.
The New York Times, with ceremonial hat tilting, saw Bush as “part of a new generation of Republicans” and was “often referred to as the most successful one-term
president”. The recipe for this success, according to such commentary, seems to have been written in foreign rather than
domestic fields. He is seen as a masterful juggler, “handling” the collapse of the Soviet Union and ensuring “the
liberation of Eastern Europe”. As the Cold War curtain was drawn, Bush, reprising his role as a Second World War naval
aviator, remained calm.
Bush’s passing is a reminder about a particular moment of history. The Soviet Union packed up in disarray, its own
imperium unfolding as based closed and forces left. This left the way, dangerously, for an uncontained hegemon. The
United States became Prometheus unbound, even if its power was initially advertised under the broader umbrella of a “New
World Order”.
Bush gave an inkling of what this order would look like in his address to a joint session of Congress on September 11,
1990. “The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic
period of cooperation.”
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, having invaded Kuwait in August 1990 after reading mixed signals from Washington, had presented
an alibi and pretext for principled aggression, done so, artificially, under the blanket of international norms. Bush
made the spurious claim that the Iraqi invasion had been prompted “without provocation or warning,” ignoring the July assurance given to Saddam by US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, that Washington had “no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like
your border disagreement with Kuwait.” He saw, in Baghdad’s efforts, a stretched historical analogy. “As was the case in
the 1930’s, we see in Saddam Hussein an aggressive dictator threatening his neighbours.”
Crucial to this was a condescending hand to the Soviet Union: that it be welcomed “back into the world order”. (Had it
been absent for the duration?) Such language was couched in the confidence of an imperial leadership convinced that the
barbarians had been subjugated and would, if not exactly lend their support, avoid any effort to sabotage Project USA.
These shaky norms were defended by a coalition, assembled in January 1991, disproportionate in its scope involving two
dozen countries, but it lent itself to the dangerous illusion that the US should, and could, become a post-Cold War
policeman equipped with discriminatory wisdom and fine acumen. New World Orders, when invoked, tend to be preludes to
further conflict. President Woodrow Wilson, vainly obsessed with the League of Nations, did much to aspire to a moral
structure that had, within its own foundation, ruination and despoliation. As Europe recoiled in 1919 from
self-inflicted slaughter, a second world war was in gestation.
In that very suggestion that a country might be central to remaking a global system came the defective nature of US
foreign policy and its messianic, delivering strain: an empire seen in the context of duty and shouldering a heavy
burden to make a world safe for something or rather. (Democracy less than money and hustling.) Expelling Saddam from
Kuwait was a false advertisement for future collective security, a concept that had been doomed in the aftermath of the
First World War.
The 1991 mission also came with an unhealthy sense that the Vietnam syndrome had been purged, rendering US military
interventions somehow free of original sin. Morally inspired giants could intervene in foreign conflicts at will without
lasting and dangerous consequence. Father Bush thereby begot the failings of Bush Junior in a Middle East repeat in 2003
that continues to shake the region in paroxysms of sectarian rage.
No figure can be considered in splendid isolation. Bush was Ronald Reagan’s vice-president for eight years, much of it
featuring a president prone to astrological advice (quite literally) and amnesiac episodes. He also took a leaf out of
the latter’s book of deception over the arms-for-hostages deal, professing ignorance about it in 1987. It is one of the
few points that his biographer, Jon Meacham, finds fault with him over. Then came the supply side economics that remains a perennial disease of US economics: you coddle
and favour the wealthy through sugary tax cuts, increase public debt and slash public funding.
If the beasts of relativity were to be consulted, Bush Sr could be seen as better in value than certain US presidents,
but only marginally. He, after all, presided over the motor of hubris that did lead the US into a lengthy sunset even as
it hectored the rest of the world. In evaluating his own son’s exploits, he was guarded and concerned about the turn of
power after September 11, 2001. He was particularly concerned of the neoconservative hardliners. “I don’t like what he
did,” reflected Bush on former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, “and think it hurt the president, having his iron-ass view of
everything”. In the annals of empire, the two Bushes, separated by a Clinton, remain more consistent than the hair
splitters would wish.
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Email: bkampmark@gmail.com