No room for ambiguity as Bush faces historic week

  • Jim Hoagland / Washington Post columnist
  • Tuesday, November 13, 2001 9:00pm
  • Opinion

WASHINGTON — The unexpectedly swift battlefield victories of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan come at a golden moment for President Bush, who can make this an extraordinary week of U.S. leadership in world affairs. The victories also strengthen the hand of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the policy battleground of the Bush administration.

Bush confronts a triptych of urgent foreign policy challenges as he adjusts U.S. strategy in Central Asia to the unbidden fall of Kabul in frame one, plays high-stakes nuclear poker with Russian President Vladimir Putin in frame two, and tries to keep the lid on murderous Arab-Israeli tensions by talking peace without seeming to reward terrorism in the painting’s third panel.

Each problem now demands a visible, steady hand and clear thinking from Bush, who has temporized on all of them at different times since taking office. Given this president’s intensely personal view of leadership, he should now — in a matter of hours, so to speak — take command of tasks he has willingly left for aides to spar over for months.

The conduct of the Afghan campaign, a new strategic relationship with Russia and the Middle East peace process have been primary arenas of conflict between Rumsfeld’s Pentagon and the State Department of Colin Powell, with Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice occupying a rapidly shrinking middle ground between them.

Rice has become Bush’s most trusted foreign policy aide through her powers of conciliation and by not trying to seize turf of her own. But this has led to a bogging-down of the interagency process that past administrations used to sort out intramural competition and to frame sharp policy options for presidential decision.

In Afghanistan and the Middle East, events now drive policy at a furious pace. In Russian-U.S. relations, Putin’s shrewd handling of the Afghan crisis and his grasp of Bush’s tendency to cast political and strategic questions in terms of personal trust and friendship could give the Russian initial advantage in this week’s summitry. Bush must seize this moment to keep from falling behind the accelerating curve of history.

He makes this bid from a position of new strength, thanks to the cracking of the Taliban’s northern positions by U.S. air power. Bush’s calls last week for the Northern Alliance to abstain from taking Kabul came at the prompting of Powell and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. Those appeals were unrealistic — and strategically counterproductive for Bush.

Rumsfeld’s hard nose won out over Powell’s soft soap in this opening phase of a still unfolding campaign. The Pentagon wanted to pursue a more vigorous air war from the outset, but was allowed to do so only in late October after the deficiencies of the State Department’s southern strategy became glaringly apparent.

Bush and Rumsfeld must now cope with the problems created by this sudden gift: They must apply effective pressure on the Northern Alliance to prevent bloodbaths in Kabul and further south while continuing to chase Osama bin Laden and cobbling together an interim Afghan political regime and local security force. A tall order — made easier by possession of Kabul.

This new wind in Bush’s sails will affect his talk with Putin in Washington and Crawford, Texas. Bush seeks to persuade the Russian leader to bless publicly a private understanding the two men reached last month in Shanghai to leave the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty standing for the time being while advanced testing of a U.S. missile-defense system proceeds and offensive nuclear weapons are dramatically cut by each side.

Rumsfeld reported to the White House after a follow-up visit to Moscow 10 days ago that Putin’s aides were backtracking on the Shanghai terms by demanding new formal arms control agreements to lower warhead and missile totals. Bush wants to bury such symbols of Cold War diplomacy, as he made clear at his press conference with Putin on Tuesday. This stumbling block will have to be removed by the two leaders themselves if their talks are to succeed.

The president also faces a recurring moment of truth on the Middle East peace process. Powell has lobbied for a green light to give a long-delayed speech that responds positively to Arab calls for a more active U.S. role in peacemaking. But he has been stymied in part by arguments from the Pentagon that this would seem to reward bin Laden and Yasser Arafat for terrorist actions.

Bush has navigated for almost 10 months between conflicting schools of thought among his aides. On key points, even the aides seem uncertain where he will come down. That is a luxury of ambiguity that the president can no longer afford as history comes calling.

Jim Hoagland can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or hoaglandj@washpost.com.

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