Read My Ships

By Michael Kramer

Communism collapses, America declines. For more than a year, that coupling has expressed the conventional wisdom: a new world is emerging, a post-cold war era driven as never before by economic competition, an order in which other nations, new superpowers like Germany and Japan, will challenge U.S. primacy. At best, the argument runs, an exhausted U.S., nearly bankrupt after 40 years of containing Soviet expansionism, will have to share global leadership in the 21st century.

It may play that way. It may even be likely. But not just yet. The uneven distribution of wealth-producing resources -- the gap between haves and have- nots -- is fueling a regional crisis, a struggle with severe implications for the entire world's standard of living. And only the U.S., most everyone acknowledges, has the capacity to muster the international effort required to stop the power-grab of a vain, amoral crusader like Saddam Hussein. It appears that George Bush has the will and skill to do so.

"Watch and learn," the President said as events unfolded last week -- a boast reminiscent of an earlier bit of Bush self-analysis: "Maybe I'll turn out to be a Teddy Roosevelt."

This is the crisis for which Bush has spent a lifetime preparing, the test he knew would come sometime, the challenge he has always been confident he could meet. Ten years ago, as he was losing the Republican presidential nomination to Ronald Reagan, Bush shucked off his shoes, loosened his tie, grabbed a beer and took a quiet moment to calmly assess the job he coveted. "You work your ass off, get credit for stuff you're barely involved in and none at all for things you've put together behind the scenes. Domestic problems drag you down and nag all the time. You're up in the polls and down and then up again. But sooner or later something major happens, something abroad that only we ((the U.S.)) can do something about. Then you show if you can cut it. If you can't, everything else can be going beautifully and you're probably out of there next time. If you pull it off, a lot else can go wrong and you'll be all right. Because when people hit the ((voting)) booth, well, then they think, 'Hey, when the chips are down, this guy can defend us and what we stand for, and that's what it's all about.' I know I can handle the foreign policy side. On that, at least, our campaign slogan hits it. I really would be a President we don't have to train."

Eight years later, Bush still saw foreign policy as his ticket to the White House and the true measure of presidential achievement. After Michael Dukakis' rousing performance at the 1988 Democratic Convention, Bush was down 17 points in the polls. A rash of silly sloganeering and low blows ensued (remember the Pledge of Allegiance and Willie Horton?), but the road back followed a carefully detailed game plan and always returned to attacking Dukakis as ill equipped to manage America's world role. Whenever complicated domestic questions threatened to confuse the message, Bush heeded his handlers' advice and pushed his central theme. "The single most important job of the President," he reminded audiences time and again, "is the national security of the United States."

On Aug. 4, 1988 (exactly two years before he took the first steps toward ordering U.S. troops to the Persian Gulf), Bush delivered a major foreign affairs speech and referred approvingly to John Kennedy's Inaugural Address: "We shall bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and success of liberty." After nearly three decades of convulsive history, that single Kennedy paragraph, with its repetitive "anys," is one that many historians identify as representing a misplaced sense of Manifest Destiny. But Bush told his Corpus Christi, Texas, audience that J.F.K.'s formulation reflected "the policies and principles I will follow as President." As bombast worked for Kennedy, so too it worked for Bush. Election Day exit polls revealed that of the 25% of all voters who identified defense and foreign affairs as the deciding factors in their choice, 87% voted for Bush.

If faith in Bush's ability to protect America's interests abroad helped elect him, his handling of the present crisis has been masterly. Iraq's aggression may not be the defining moment of Bush's presidency, but it is certainly the best so far, and it comes on the heels of a series of domestic miscues -- on the budget, taxes, parental leave, civil rights and the S&L scandal. If Bush ignored the Iraqi threat for weeks, if his Administration miscalculated Saddam's messianic intentions and engaged in a quiet appeasement of Baghdad for the better part of two years, if America is at greater risk because Bush, his predecessors and Congress failed to develop a credible energy policy that reduced the country's dependence on foreign oil, at least since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the President has proved adroit, even brilliant.

Bush may lack an overarching global vision, but he has a clear understanding of the emerging geostrategic realities and the ways in which they can be turned to advantage. Were Reagan still in office, it is almost certain that securing international cooperation would have been way down on the White House agenda. Reagan relished America's role as world policeman, a lone cowboy avenging evil. Bush knows that rounding up a posse in advance better suits today's world. Last week's promise of allied and Arab forces may add meaningfully to the U.S. military effort in the gulf -- or count for little if war comes. But even if those actions are only symbolic, they matter greatly. When a dicey situation requires a long-term commitment -- as the current deployment appears to be -- having others in your corner, if not in your foxhole, makes it far easier to prosecute and sustain.

The key to Bush's unprecedented freedom of maneuver is the new Soviet- American detente. With Moscow eager to show its more cooperative face to the world (and avoid offending the U.S. when the Soviets need Western economic assistance), a joint U.S.-Soviet condemnation of Iraq was swiftly crafted. Once that was in place, other nations could join Washington without fear of reprisal. But the pieces still needed assembling, and the years Bush spent assiduously courting foreign leaders paid off handsomely. "Call Fahd, call Ozal, say this to this guy, that to another," says a Bush aide who watched his boss calculate. "No memos were required. It was all in his head. He operated exactly opposite of how Reagan worked. He knew the military thrust should follow the diplomatic. He knew that to be effective, the lineup against Saddam had to be perceived as more than just the rich West against a poor ( Arab." Within days, worldwide economic sanctions were in place: a boycott of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil and a freezing of those nations' assets.

One phone call was especially important. Before the crisis, Japan imported 12% of its oil from Iraq and Kuwait. Nonetheless, Bush persuaded Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu to join the boycott of Iraqi crude. "People are always giving Bush guff for his first-name strategy with world leaders," says an Administration official. "But then he calls Tokyo and gets Kaifu to go along with the oil embargo, a step that may not be in Japan's self-interest. To say we were surprised is to put it mildly." Equally impressive was the President's engineering of United Nations sanctions against Iraq -- a delicious irony given Bush's repeated swipes at Dukakis for naively believing in the U.N.'s usefulness.

Rallying the Arab world to the American cause has been trickiest. Saudi Arabia feared that the U.S. might tire of its mission and pull out, leaving the oil-rich kingdom at Saddam's mercy. But the resolve Bush projected was perceived as firm, in part because he waived the Metzenbaum amendment -- a restriction on the sale of U.S. jets to the Saudis. Coupled with the satellite intelligence showing that Saddam's forces were positioned to strike the Saudis, that action turned King Fahd into a believer, and U.S. troops were promptly invited to defend Saudi Arabia.

At week's end Saddam's tirade against his Arab neighbors for countenancing American aid tipped most other Arab nations to Bush's view of the Iraqi danger. To their rhetorical anger, they have now added a pledge of Arab ground forces and support for the economic isolation of Iraq. Would the region's leaders have acted so decisively against Saddam if Bush had not already drawn so many others to his side while deploying U.S. air, sea and land power into the area? Probably not. The backbone required to overcome their fear of Saddam was supplied by Bush.

"In terms of directional clarity," says a Bush adviser, "this has all been an easy call. Even a dolt understands the principle. We need the oil. It's nice to talk about standing up for freedom, but Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are not exactly democracies, and if their principal export were oranges, a mid-level State Department official would have issued a statement and we would have closed Washington down for August. There is nothing to waver about here." What Saddam offers the President, says another White House aide, is "a case where he knows what's right, he knows what the American people think, and he knows what he should do. Most important, he knows these are all one and the same thing."

The public U.S. strategy is two-pronged. Militarily, Bush intends to stop Iraq at the Saudi border, guaranteeing by the sheer presence of American troops that an attack on Saudi Arabia is an attack on the U.S. The international boycott of Baghdad is in fact an economic offensive designed to squeeze Saddam so tightly that he is forced to withdraw from Kuwait. "Nobody can stand up forever to total economic deprivation," said Bush last week.

If a shooting war is avoided now, it may come later. When and if the economic stranglehold hits Iraq hard -- perhaps in three to four months -- it is entirely possible that rather than capitulate, Saddam will lash out militarily. No matter how supportive the public may be of Bush's intervention today, its willingness to tolerate flag-draped coffins returning to the U.S. for weeks on end is at best problematic. "This is not Panama or Grenada," says a man who has served both Reagan and Bush. "This is a deal with no known end," and the long haul is not America's strong suit. "The risk that is we won't be patient and determined enough to undertake the pressures of long-term commitment," says House Speaker Tom Foley.

Even if no military clash occurs, Bush's skills will be tested further in the weeks and months ahead. Keeping the nation solidly behind him will become harder if a stalemate ensues and oil prices continue their upward spiral despite Saudi promises to increase production. Bush could insulate himself by finally pressing for a sane energy policy, but he shows no signs of even contemplating one.

High gasoline prices represent but one potential political downside for Bush. A full-fledged recession is likelier than ever. A budget compromise with congressional Democrats -- elusive even before the gulf crisis -- will be that much more difficult to fashion if events in the Middle East mean that energy taxes and defense cuts are now deemed off the table.

And those are only the non-lethal problems. Saddam's close ties to terrorist groups -- Abu Nidal is just one Baghdad favorite -- could put U.S. citizens at risk everywhere. And then there are the hostages, 3,500 Americans held against their will in Iraq and Kuwait. Of all the potential political threats to Bush, this is the greatest. The sight of yellow ribbons, already a staple of the evening news, will fester like an open wound. Terrified of the nightmare that doomed Jimmy Carter's presidency, the White House is straining to avoid the H word. To no avail, of course. The U.S. knows a hostage when it sees one.

What will constitute a victory in the showdown against Iraq? If a year from now, oil-price stability has been achieved and Saddam is either back within his own borders or deposed, the political benefits for Bush will be great. As he said a decade ago, he will have delivered when the chips were down.

Beyond the President's personal political fortunes, the present mess may spawn some truly significant legacies. The post-cold war U.N., ripe for realizing its lofty aims -- the maintenance of peace and respect for international law -- has passed an important test, and could become the useful forum for conflict resolution it was intended to be. In the Arab world, new alliances will probably emerge. Whether they are pro- or anti-Western, less or more hostile toward Israel, they will surely be different. Of greatest moment -- at least to the U.S. -- is the fact that Bush may have stumbled on a new role for America and the military power it commands. Leading the free world is less of a mission now that so many are free or on the way to becoming so. But someone is always going to have to lead the civilized world. Saddam Hussein isn't the last despot around.

For hundreds of years, Iraq has been governed by men with ambitions to expand their country's borders. Whether a successor to Saddam would perpetuate that tradition is unknowable. But as long as Saddam himself is around, trouble will be close by. He is, after all, the same Saddam whose air force crippled the U.S.S. Stark with an Exocet missile three years ago. (A mistake, said Baghdad, and apologized.) Saddam sees himself as the rightful ruler of the Arab world -- and he is embarked on a nuclear-weapons development program that the CIA says could be successful in three to five years. Thus the unstated third prong of Bush's strategy is actually to topple Saddam, perhaps by letting him stew long enough for domestic Iraqi discontent to reach new heights. "Let him off the hook now," says a White House aide, "and sooner or later he will be back, and we will be too -- back to square one. Drag this out, and maybe, just maybe, Iraqis will become so fed up that they'll balk at the prospect of another long war and take out the fellow who can't seem to live without another one to fight."

, Symbols tell tales, and politicians manipulate them shamelessly. When Bush addressed the nation last week -- "in the morning, because that's when he's best," says a White House aide -- the credenza behind his Oval Office desk was loaded with family portraits; the extended Bush family as a metaphor for the even larger American family the President seeks to protect.

But when he made the decision to send Americans to the Persian Gulf, Bush did so in a conference room at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland's Catoctin mountains. Not far away, in a long hallway, a showcase of war mementos greets passers-by. Dominating the scene is a life-size photograph of Bush, the kind that tourists in Washington pay $5 to pose with. But Bush's version, a Christmas gift from the U.S. Army, is framed and has a dozen-odd bullet holes in its head. It was retrieved from the private pistol range of Manuel Noriega. Nearby are the original police mug shots of Noriega, face front and silhouette. Does the President enshrine these images as prehistoric men wore totems from which to derive strength? Or is this the beginning of a Terrorist Trophy Room, where the President, who often trains a double-barreled shotgun on Texas quail, can display what he has bagged in the way of bigger game?

There is enough room on the wall for a picture of Saddam Hussein. In what pose, exactly? a Bush adviser was asked last week. "Dead would be nice," he replied -- a flip remark that nonetheless reflected both the situation's seriousness and an outcome the Administration would welcome.

After seconding John Kennedy's ringing declaration of America's purpose in his 1988 campaign, Bush was criticized for jingoism. "I don't think Kennedy was advocating intervention in every trouble spot," said Bush, and he was right. Many of America's foreign adventures have divided the nation. The gulf mission, so far, has united much of the world.

With reporting by Michael Duffy/Washington