Isaac Newton's third law of motion says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. While some Americans may feel that we are not subject to any laws of science, this one at least, seems to also hold true in the laboratory of politics. The eight years of stupidity that defined the Bush presidency is its living proof.
The media myth-makers have lately been spinning a tale about "an enormously popular president" who was felled by a hurricane that "no one could have foreseen." Yes, that's the sum total of their argument: Katrina is to blame for the fact that Bush, Cheney and their congressional enablers wrecked America. Everything was just hunky dory until Katrina hit; then everything went downhill.
But Katrina was just one of many instances of Newton's law in action. Just prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush's approval ratings were already falling, and were never higher than the low 50s. Before Osama bin Laden turned him into Captain Codpiece the Conqueror, Bush was perceived by Americans as a lazy bum; within his first six months in office he'd broken the record for longest vacation by any president. After the attacks, Bush's approval ratings saw an equal and opposite reaction. That is, after he came out of hiding and stood on the pile of rubble with his bullhorn, the ratings soared to 90 percent.
Seldom had the nation been so united behind one president, and never had the rest of the world been so united on America's side. Even Iran condemned the attacks and, with its more moderate ruling elements behind President Mohammad Khatami in ascendancy, came forward to provide intelligence that helped the U.S. in the initial assaults on the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Only a monumental fool such as Bush could have squandered such unity. He demonstrated Newton's third law of motion again on Jan. 29, 2002, in his State of the Union address, during which he jabbed his middle finger at the world and declared Iran, Iraq and North Korea the "axis of evil." As Max Rodenbeck wrote recently in the New York Review of Books, "This sudden, sharp escalation of rhetoric shocked Iranians profoundly, leaving proponents of warmer ties dangerously exposed."
According the obtuse Condi Rice, no one, other than perhaps Sir Isaac Newton, "could have foreseen" such a reaction. Indeed, in Barbara Slavin's new book Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, Rice is quoted: "What is funny about it is that ['axis of evil'] didn't really catch my eye." Rodenbeck calls that a "stunning admission of diplomatic insensitivity." Further fueling the "equal and opposite reaction," Dick Cheney rebuffed attempts by Iranian diplomats to hold talks on Iran's nuclear program, telling them, "We don't speak to evil."
Bingo. Newton's law rules: the moderates in Iran were swept from power, replaced by the mentally unstable Ahmadinejad and his cadre of fanatics, and relations with Iran have never been worse. Indeed, Bush's pissing in the wind strategy—furthered by the invasion of "axis of evil" member Iraq in March, 2003—has turned the Middle East into a killing zone. Over the past five years, Ahmadinejad's rhetoric has emboldened Hezbollah and Hamas and made al Qaeda feel pretty good about itself, too. The current war in Gaza is a fitting and entirely predictable result of the actions of a White House that had no interest in peace.
A review of a wave of recent titles in the New York Review of Books by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley sums up the administration perfectly: "uninterested in the peace process, inattentive to the impact of their policies, uninformed about reality, incapable of follow-through, and utterly unembarrassed by it all."
No one but Newton could have foreseen that whenever such "leadership" took an action, there would be an equal and opposite reaction against it elsewhere in the world.
