Daily Times

POTUS 41 had the distinction of seeing one of his sons being elected president of the US, and seeing another son, Jeb Bush, elected governor of Florida

Bush 41 felt that the most fulfilling job he ever held was not the presidency of the United States but being head of the CIA

George W Bush ,”W” and pronounced as Dubya, served as the 43rd president of the United States (POTUS). He defeated Bill Clinton’s vice president, Al Gore, in an election that was marked with controversy.

W would probably have remained a one-term president, and his presidency would have been termed colourless by historians but for the terrorist attacks on 9/11. The way he handled himself at the bombed-out site of the World Trade Centre in New York, and how he addressed the American people with a megaphone in hand caused his popularity to hit 90 percent in the US.

Despite his lack of eloquence, W soon found himself holding forth on the global stage. He bonded well with Pakistan’s military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, and both posed in front of the White House at one point in a striking picture that was transmitted around the globe.

However, W overreached when he decided to engage in an elective war against Iraq. His decision to attack Iraq unilaterally in 2003 drew global opprobrium. Of course, Saddam Hussain, despite his tall talk and boasting, was ill-equipped to take on the US. His military was defeated in three weeks. Americans were delighted when W gave his ‘Mission Accomplished’ speech on the deck of a US aircraft carrier off the coast of San Diego a couple of months later. He was re-elected and served as POTUS for two terms.

W’s tenure eclipsed the one-term presidency of his father, George Herbert Walker Bush, the 41st US president who had served as Ronald Reagan’s vice president for two terms. Earlier, POTUS 41 had served as the first US ambassador in China during the presidency of Richard Nixon, headed the Central Intelligence Agency, and served as UN ambassador.

POTUS 41 was the first American president to launch a major war after the Vietnam War. The opportunity came when Saddam Hussain decided to attack Kuwait in August 1990. However, unlike W, he did not attack Iraq unilaterally. He spent a considerable amount of time developing an international consensus on the need to evict Hussain from Kuwait. He went to war with a global coalition. When Hussain was evicted, he did not decide to engage the retreating Iraqi forces in hot pursuit all the way to Baghdad.

Despite his lack of eloquence, W soon found himself holding forth on the global stage. He bonded well with Pakistan’s military dictator, General Pervez Musharraf, and both posed in front of the White House at one point in a striking picture that was transmitted around the globe

Bush’s mission was accomplished without the need to invade Iraq. He was widely praised for his restraint throughout the world. But the US economy slipped into a recession soon thereafter, and he lost his re-election to a relatively obscure former governor of Alaska, Bill Clinton, whose campaign had been structured around the slogan, “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Bush’s life and times are meticulously presented in an engaging880-page tome by famed biographer Jon Meacham. The book is curiously entitled Destiny and Power. The book describes his early days at Yale, his election to Congress and how, before running for office, he had sought the advice from the former president Lyndon Johnson on whether he should run for the Senate or the House. The blunt-spoken Texan told the young man whose political life lay ahead of him that while both were great pursuits, one could be compared to chicken salad and the other to chicken excrement.

POTUS 41 had the distinction of seeing one of his sons being elected president of the US, and seeing another son, Jeb Bush, elected governor of Florida. POTUS 41 was alive when Donald Trump was elected president of the US. He did not like Trump at all, and famously called him a ‘blow hard’.

Some of the same ground is covered in a recently-released documentary, Bush 41, which seeks to establish his role in American history. The story is narrated through an engaging conversation with Bush. We discover that his nickname was Poppy. He developed a love for boating early in life, and that stayed with him till the very end. With his family he would spend summers in their house in Kennebunkport, Maine, by the sea. This was something he continued doing throughout his life. He attended private school in Andover, was shocked when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour, and joined the navy as an aviator at the young age of 18. After the war, he attended Yale University. Along the way, he met Barbara, fell in love, and married her.

During his job search, Proctor and Gamble turned down Bush. His first job took him to the Texas oil fields that lie in the Permian basin, and henceforth would be known as an oilman. At some point, his political ambitions surfaced. He decided to run for the US Senate but lost race. Later, he was elected to the House.

During his tenure as UN ambassador, Bush worked hard to keep Taiwan as the official representative of China on the UN Security Council. But as world opinion swung in the opposite direction, that position became untenable and he lost the battle.

Bush was chairman of the Republican Party when the Watergate incident happened. Initially, he was in denial. He could not accept the fact that something that sordid had happened. When it became clear that it had happened, he thought President Nixon was not aware of it. At some point reality dawned. There was no way to deny the sad truth that the American people had been lied to by their president, who had been re-elected in a landslide. Bush had the thankless task of asking the president to step down. Resigned to his fate, Nixon said goodbye to the American people on August 9, 1974 without admitting guilt. The newly appointed President Ford pardoned Nixon.

During the presidency of Gerald Ford, Bush was appointed ambassador to China. He worked closely with Chairman Mao on a number of issues including the dispute with China. Mao told him that China was prepared to put the Taiwan issue on the backburner for a hundred years, maybe even two hundred years.

Bush 41 felt that the most fulfilling job he ever held was not the presidency of the United States but being head of the CIA.

As they survey Bush 41’s life and times, the Meacham biography and the documentary cover a lot of ground. They provide unique insights into the workings of his mind and the formation of US policy. The surprising omission in both is the lack of any discussion of Pakistan, of the role it played in the US opening to China, or any discussion of the Kashmir issue. In the bigger scheme of things, Pakistan plays a relatively small role in the formation of any US policy.

The writer can be reached at ahmadfaruqui@gmail.com