Misreading America

Amir Taheri has a must-read in the WSJ on how leaders from Pakistan to Morocco think that this whole democracy thing is over once Bush leaves office, so all they need to do is wait it out.

The way Hassan Abbasi -- Iran's "Henry Kissenger of Islam" -- tells it, the recent history of U.S. foreign policy can best be understood by "the last helicopter." Gerald Ford's helicopter was in Saigon. Jimmy Carter's helicopters got bogged down in the Iranian desert. Ronald Reagan pulled out of Lebanon after the killing of 241 Marines (apparently airlifted out by helicopter). HW Bush's helicopters left Iraq to Saddam rather than go to Baghdad. And, of course, 2 of Bill Clinton's Blackhawks was shot down in Mogadishu. 

According to this theory, Taheri says:  

...President George W. Bush is an "aberration," a leader out of sync with his nation's character and no more than a brief nightmare for those who oppose the creation of an "American Middle East." Messrs. Abbasi and Ahmadinejad have concluded that there will be no helicopter as long as George W. Bush is in the White House. But they believe that whoever succeeds him, Democrat or Republican, will revive the helicopter image to extricate the U.S. from a complex situation that few Americans appear to understand.

Though I'm not certain about his reporting, Taheri describes how Ahmadinejad convinced Syria's Assad to stay defiant, and obstruct the Rafiq Hariri investigation. Ahmadinejad apparently told a gathering of Hezbollah,  Hamas, and other radical Arab leaders last month: "They can pass resolutions until they are blue in the face."

So how valid is this theory of waiting out Bush? Not very, Tahiri says. And I agree. Political leaders -- GOP or Dem -- can't afford to be of the mindset that what happens in Saudi Arabia stays in Saudi Arabia (or Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, etc). Because it doesn't. After 9/11, Americans became much more tolerant of unfortunate incidents involving helicopters. And even if the heavily militaristic aspects of Bush's foreign policy are dropped, a lot of the basics will remain. So here we are:

Those who have based their strategy on waiting Mr. Bush out may find to their cost that they have, once again, misread not only American politics but the realities of a world far more complex than it was even a decade ago. Mr. Bush may be a uniquely decisive, some might say reckless, leader. But a visitor to the U.S. soon finds out that he represents the American mood much more than the polls suggest.