Bush in 2001: "by the way, I don't think Macedonia is Somalia" - How Bush viewed the world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/26/garton-ash-bush-world-view

'My object is to make Putin feel recognised as a great power'


How George Bush viewed the world - as witnessed by Timothy Garton Ash

Timothy Garton Ash


It was in May 2001 when we settled down to work in a large, yellow-painted drawing room called the Yellow Oval Room (not to be confused with the Oval Office), which gives directly on to the Truman Balcony. On one side sat, in throne-like chairs, George Bush and the vice-president, a lowering Dick Cheney. The invited guests were placed on two large sofas.

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"I sit before you, an unvarnished Texan," said the president, in a characteristically self-deprecating opening. He wanted to know more, he explained, before he travelled to Europe for his first official visit, but he came to it with a certain feeling that "our great country" was tied down by international commitments.

His suspicion of most forms of liberal internationalism was a recurrent theme. He complained that there had been far too many half-baked US military interventions. My notes have him exclaiming, "What would we be doing in Rwanda?" Notes made by another participant, Lionel Barber (then US editor of the Financial Times), record him saying, "I ain't going to get into no Somalia." American troops, he insisted, should not be used as "cross-walk soldiers". He did not look best pleased when I observed - did I add "with respect, Mr President"? - that "Macedonia is not Somalia".

He looked even less pleased when Barber said Europeans feared the US might be moving "from mindless multilateralism to mindless unilateralism". Truth to tell, Bush did not seem altogether familiar with the word multilateralism, let alone the thing. When he came back to it later, he turned to Barber and said something like "so that's your multiculturalism ... or multinationalism ... " We both had the impression that he meant multilateralism. Multibloodysomethingism, anyway.

On most issues relating to Europe he seemed to have an open, not to say an empty mind. But on two matters his mind was entirely made up. One was missile defence. "I'm absolutely committed to the concept," he said. This was "not Star Wars". It was directed against many threats, not only Russia. Iranian missiles were mentioned. He felt that in his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin he could persuade the Russian president to join him in this historic undertaking: "My object is to make him feel recognised as a great power."

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When he wound up at the end, he looked directly at me: "And, by the way, I don't think Macedonia is Somalia. I had the Macedonian president in here the other day and, as the only two Methodist world leaders, we prayed together ..."

With that bizarre coda, our meeting drew to a close. As I travelled to the airport in a battered old Washington taxi, I reflected on a moment earlier in the conversation when, apropos of nothing in particular, he had veered off into an anecdote about a summit of North and South American leaders. After "articulating and articulating", as Condi Rice had instructed him to do, he decided to stay silent on a significant issue.