- Mar 26, 2003
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George W. Bush made what may prove to be the most important stop of his re-election campaign yesterday, asking the United Nations to help him win a second term as President.
He clearly didn't enjoy it much. Arrayed before him were some of his least favourite people, doubters who had questioned the wisdom of his campaign to oust Saddam Hussein and bring a better life to his brutalized subjects. People who had poked fun at the President, made sneering remarks about his intelligence, compared him to a cowboy out there on the range, firing away at anything that moved.
And here he was having to ask them for help, seeking their money and manpower to rescue the mission that could still be the biggest success of his presidency if he can keep it from collapsing in ruin. He didn't want to do it, but he didn't have much choice. The numbers made that clear: even as he waited his turn at the podium, CNN described to viewers the fix he was in. His polling numbers are the worst of his presidency, with only 50% of Americans still convinced the war was a good idea, down from 63% a month ago, and only half of respondents willing to suggest Mr. Bush is still doing a good job, down 10 percentage points in one month.
Things are so bad that Wesley Clark, an easily irritated former general with no political experience and not much of a campaign, is leading Mr. Bush in the presidential sweepstakes, though perhaps only because Americans don't know him too well yet. Even Richard Gephardt, a well-meaning but wooden perennial candidate who starts slow and slides from there, is almost neck and neck with Mr. Bush.
It's not like the game is over. It's still more than 13 months until election day and Mr. Bush could easily reverse his slide. But he has to get moving, and the first thing he has to do is get the Iraq imbroglio off the agenda. Mr. Bush can campaign as the liberator of Baghdad, the conqueror of Saddam Hussein, but he can't get himself re-elected if Americans wake up every morning to read about the latest bomb attack in Baghdad, accompanied by an updated death toll and photos of angry widows. He could still portray himself as the man who freed Iraq and chased the Taliban out of Afghanistan, but he has to get rid of some of the heavier baggage. He needs more allies in Baghdad to police the streets, help pay the bills, get the electricity running and generally make the world forget it has largely been an American show. Then he can refocus his attention on the Democrats, hope the economy revives, and put his US$200-million campaign war chest to use.
So there he was yesterday at the UN, holding out an olive branch of sorts, trying to convince the delegates he could be a reasonable guy.
He set out gamely, noting that the terrorists in Iraq aren't just killing American soldiers and their allies, they are murdering humanitarian workers and even one of the UN's best and brightest, Brazil's Sergio Vieira de Mello, who one day might have replaced Kofi Annan as secretary-general if he hadn't died in an attack on his headquarters in Baghdad.
The killers of Mr. de Mello, Mr. Bush said, "should have no friend in these chambers." It wasn't about the United States, or even about George Bush, it was about good versus evil, right versus wrong, democracy or tyranny. "There is no neutral ground," he insisted. All governments that support terror are part of that terror; all governments that fight it "will earn the favourable judgment of history."
He tried a little praise as well: the war in Iraq hadn't really been the United States and Britain acting almost alone in a hunt for weapons of mass destruction, it was a reflection of the determination to enforce the UN's decade-long campaign to make Saddam Hussein come clean about his arsenal. OK, no illegal weapons have been found, but the prisons have been cleared of their political prisoners, the torture chambers have fallen silent, the "rape rooms" have been closed and the mass graves have grown no larger. "Across Iraq, life is being improved by liberty," he told them. The Middle East is a bit safer, the world more secure because "an ally of terror has fallen."
But then, unexpectedly, Mr. Bush seemed to lose heart. It was as if he'd suddenly concluded this wasn't an audience willing to be convinced. The sweeping statements ended, and the politician seeking re-election returned. Off he rambled into a disjointed defence of U.S. activities overseas, fighting AIDS here, delivering food aid there. For some reason he even mounted an attack on the international trade in sex slaves, making clear the United States is against it. He had even signed a law, the Protect Act, making it a crime to engage in sex tourism involving children.
Jacques Chirac must have wondered what had gotten into Mr. Bush. The French President is not lacking in vices, but sex with children isn't generally believed to be one of them. Mr. Chirac was in the audience, waiting for a scheduled session after the speech at which Mr. Bush would be required to grit his teeth, pretend bygones were bygones, and ask Mr. Chirac to help him out of his jam. The French leader has known dark days of his own, and had let it be known he was available for wooing, telling The New York Times he might not support Mr. Bush, but he wouldn't veto his efforts, either. Gerhard Schroeder was there as well, willing to offer assistance -- if not actual troops -- for the right price.
Mr. Bush probably has no choice but to pay the price. Some U.S. authority will have to be surrendered; Washington will have to pretend it thinks the Iraqis are ready to govern themselves. Some big reconstruction contracts will have to go to conspicuous non-Americans. And it will likely have to be soon -- Mr. Schroeder suggested yesterday that "a few months" may be too many.
Mr. Bush may not protest too much. He needs to get out on that campaign trail.
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