Ein Chaot, der Krieg führt als
Wahlkampfstrategie (Economist)
“Remember the CEO presidency? Remember all the talk
about how America‘s first president with an MBA would set broad
“strategic“ goals while his loyal and leak-free “board“ of seasoned
businesspeople would decide how to implement them? And remember all the
sneering comparisons with the chaotically unprofessional Clinton
administration?
Well, the chaos is back. An administration that was
supposed to run as smoothly as clockwork has recently been clattering from
crisis to crisis, with the FBI and CIA waging a war of leaks
against each other in the press, with officials issuing endless warnings
of imminent terrorist attacks, and amid a general sense that things are
drifting out of control.
George Bush was frequently tired and
grouchy on his recent trip to Europe, hardly the best way to reassure
nervous allies. Then Andrew Card, Mr. Bush‘s chief of staff, added to the
sense of gloom in the White House over the impending departure of Karen
Hughes, the president‘s communications director, with a foolishly frank
interview in Esquire magazine. One of the keys to the
administration‘s success so far, he argued, has been the balance
between the ideological Karl Rove, senior adviser to the president, and
the more pragmatic Ms Hughes. Her departure could, he implied, tilt the
White House in a dangerously rightwing direction.
The obvious
reason for such gaffes is exhaustion. Visitors to Washington are often
impressed by the size of the president‘s entourage. But Mr. Bush‘s inner
circle—the people he trusts to offer advice and take important
decisions—is no bigger than a dozen. Over the past couple of months the
inner circle has had to deal with a relentless barrage of international
problems, involving some of the world‘s most intractable conflicts
(Israel v Palestine; Pakistan v India; al-Qaeda v civilization) as well as
its most dangerous weapons. No wonder there is an air of exhaustion
hanging around the White House.
This air of exhaustion hangs
particularly heavily around the president. Mr. Bush has never been noted
for his appetite for hard work. He likes to take long breaks for exercise
during the day and in tuck himself in bed by 10 pm. He also likes to focus on a
couple of big issues of his own choosing rather than dealing with
mess and confusion. Add to this the fact that he did not exactly come to
office overburdened with knowledge of foreign affairs and you can see why
he sometimes looks a little grouch But there is more to the
administration‘s problems than this.
There is a failure to plan
ahead. Mr. Bush‘s decision to create a new Department of Homeland Security
was driven by politic expediency rather than strategic planning. He
resisted the idea of creating a separate department for nine months. A
month ago his staff were lobbying Republican senators to vote against the
idea. He changed his mind out of desperation—because the rev elation that
the FBI and CIA had ignored evidence that might have
prevented September 11 th was undermining the country‘ confidence in its
institutions. A CEO president would have got work redesigning the
Washington bureaucracy months ago~ Bush is allowing one of the most
important government changes in 50 years to be shaped by scandal
and spin.
Next, consider an area that should be dose to the heart
oft Harvard Business School graduate: corporate reform. So far the
administration‘s proposals for curing Enronitis have been lam. The White
House is sitting on its hands while special-interest lobbyists are busy
neutering legislation on Capitol Hill. Such paralysis is bad for the
economy. In the past fortnight the heads o both Goldman Sachs and IBM
have given warning that doubts about corporate honesty are depressing
the stockmarket. It is also bad for the administration. Mr. Bush had a
chance to show that he is tough enough to force his fellow CEOS to
put their houses in order. Now it looks as if he is more interested in
avoiding hard questions about Dick Cheney‘s spell as head of
Halliburton or his own ties to dubious energy chiefs.
All
roads lead to Baghdad To Mr. Bush‘s harshest critics, this failure
to plan ahead is part o an increasingly dangerous penchant for
short-termism. His rapid surrenders on free trade are clearly part of that
pattern. Hawks are now also worried about Iraq. In the months following
his “axis of evil“ speech Mr. Bush gave the impression that was planning
to liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein. And he seemingly reaffirmed that
strategy in a speech at West Point, arguing that American foreign policy
is now based on a doctrine of pre-emptive intervention against its
ghastliest enemies. But military strategists are whispering that Mr. Bush
is having second thoughts as he learns more about the sheer scale of
the operation—that it could take a quarter of a million troops to remove
Saddam, that there could be bloody street-by-street fighting, that
installing a new regime could be the work of years.
The good news
for Mr. Bush is that he is adapting surprisingly well to the Clintonian
world of crisis-management. His volte face on homeland security may
have been disingenuous, but it seems to have worked. That and the news of
the capture of the dirty bomber, which Mr. Bush‘s people have shamelessly
milked, has distracted attention from the debate about the failings of the
intelligence services (where, again, there seems to b no administration
strategy to reorganise the system).
But such seat-of-the-pants
policy-making is fraught with problems. For the moment Mr. Bush is in
danger of remaining on the defensive, dealing with events rather than
dominating the In its own grisly way, another terrorist attack could alter
that perception. Barring that, the hawks may be right: the future of the
Bush presidency depends increasingly on Iraq. If Mr. Bush follows through
on his promise to topple Saddam Hussein, he will regain control of
politics. If he backs down, Clintonian crisis-management may be the order
of the day until 2004.” Ungekürzt aus: Economist,
15.6.2002 |