History's Verdict
Harry Truman wasn't popular in office, but he is now. George Bush is hoping for the same treatment
Bush sees parallels in his steadfast pursuit of victory in Iraq, despite many setbacks. And Bush's removal of his top generals in early January seemed based on a Truman-like conviction that the top brass need to be on the same page as the president, this time regarding a "surge" of troops into Iraq. Gen. John Abizaid is being replaced by Adm. William Fallon as the top U.S. commander in the Mideast, and Gen. George Casey is being replaced by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus as U.S. commander in Iraq.
But Rutgers political scientist Ross Baker points out that the Korean War was a broad international operation, conducted under United Nations auspices. "It really was a multinational force," Baker says, in contrast to the Iraq war, which started as a mostly unilateral intervention, with some help from Britain, and remains largely a U.S. enterprise. Casualties in Korea, though, were far heavier. The United States has lost about 3,000 soldiers and marines in Iraq so far. The Korean War claimed more than 54,000 Americans.
THE COLD WAR AND THE WAR ON TERRORISM
"President Bush makes an explicit comparison between the beginning of the war on terror and the beginning of the Cold War," says a former senior Bush adviser who was at the president's side for most of his first term. "Truman had massive historical challenges with a nation that had grown tired. But Truman very consciously tried to put in institutional frameworks to deal with these challenges."
In his farewell address to the nation, given from the Oval Office on Jan. 15, 1953, Truman said, "I suppose that history will remember my term in office as the years when the Cold War began to overshadow our lives. I have had hardly a day in office that has not been dominated by this all-embracing struggle. ... And always in the background there has been the atomic bomb. But when history says that my term of office saw the beginning of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we have set the course that can win it."
Bush takes a different tack. "You never know what your history is going to be until long after you're gone," he says. "So presidents shouldn't worry about history. You just can't. You do what you think is right, and if you're thinking big enough, that history will eventually prove you right or wrong."
Dallek has reached his own controversial conclusion, and Bush would not be pleased. "Bush will be remembered more for the war in Iraq than the war on terrorism," the historian told U.S. News. "The war in Iraq is a disaster. And there is no grand strategy for the war on terrorism." Unless Bush can turn Iraq around or somehow elevate the war on terrorism to a historic level, "he will be seen as a failed president," Dallek contends.
Yet Bush appears to believe he is destined to win the war on terrorism, according to friends. "He believes he is there for a reason," says a confidant, "and he should try as hard as he can—and leave the rest to God."
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