Arthur Schlesinger focuses his book around the how presidents use overuse their presidential power during war time. Although he discusses several different presidencies, he always comes back to George W. Bush. Although each chapter appears to have it’s own point and thesis, the point that seemed the strongest and stuck with me long after I finished the book was Bush’s take on Iraq. Presidents are supposed to prevent war, Schlesinger said. He said presidents use peace through prevention of war as a way to manage war, but Bush used peace through preventive war. While most presidents try to avoid it, Bush saw was as a way to keep the American people safe.
Bush did this quietly so that the United States and the world did not reject this idea. Preventive war had been suggested before, but it had been reject. President Truman once said, “I have always been opposed, even to the thought of such a war. There is nothing more foolish than to think that war can be stopped by war. You don’t ‘prevent’ anything by war except peace. However, Bush chose to use the word preemptive war, which many people were able to swallow. Schlesinger said the only difference between preemptive and preventive war is illegality and legality.
In light of Sept. 11, Schlesinger admits that a war with Afghanistan was necessary since the Taliban were not going to turn over Osama Bin Laden. However, the Iraq war was not necessary, Schlesinger argued and it was a sign of a unilateral presidency. Schlesinger makes a good point when he says the war against Iraq was a choice President Bush made. It was not like World War II where it came knocking on our door and we had to act. After Sept. 11, one can argue that war knocked on our door and that is why we invaded Afghanistan, but the same cannot be said for Iraq. Schlesinger said the problem with the Iraq war was that the Bush administration had “not one doubt” that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, was attempting to make nuclear bombs and had a strong connection with Bin Laden. People didn’t fight Bush because it was only a year and a half after Sept. 11. However, Bush was wrong.
What I found interesting about Schlesinger’s book was that each chapter framed an idea, often about the Bush presidency, and then backed it up with things that former presidents had said or actions that they had made. For instance, when talking about Bush entering Iraq, he quoted Lincoln saying, “If today he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, ‘I see no probability of the British invading us,’ but he will say to you, ‘Be silent: I see it, if you don’t.’ I unfortunately agree with Schlesinger that the president often had too much power when it comes to war entering powers, and I stronger agree with Lincoln’s quote here. I was only in the eighth grade when we entered Iraq, so my foreign policy skills were very little if any. But I remember thinking that Bush knew what he was doing. I remembered being a scared 12 year old when we were attacked and I thought the president was trying to protect us. I still think that’s what Bush was doing, but at what cost? Here we are still in Iraq, and what good have we done? Obama promised he’d get us out, but has he? It’s more complicated than Obama promised. War is such a complicated and permanent thing, that unless it’s necessary, we should not enter it. There’s a difference between stepping in when a country needs our help or stepping in when we’ve been attacked, but stepping in and having a full war are two different things.
I also agree with Schlesinger when he said that an imperial presidency was most likely to happen when dealing with foreign affairs. It’s easy for an imperial presidency to happen when it involves war because Congress and the American people often question their own judgment or how much they know about the foreign situation at hand. Which is why the president is trusted in foreign affair matters. The American people assume the president has done as much research as possible and has thought through the consequences of war, making an imperial presidency possible. And Bush is not the only president to do this. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt when beyond their Constitutional powers, but both did so on the idea that the American people’s safety was at stake. Roosevelt once said, “when the war is won, the powers under which I act automatically revert to the people – to whom they belong.” I believe Bush had the same mindset. He knew he was going beyond his own described powers, but he was doing it for the safety of the people. And most people don’t argue with his views to enter Afghanistan. However, an imperial presidency is dangerous when a president can use one war and one attack to base his reasoning for entering another war.
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