Redstate

Some historical perspective on understanding the mid-term election as a referendum on George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Iraq.

By AcademicElephant Posted in War — Comments (12) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

One thing that has struck me in discussing the election with Republican and Democrat friends has been their use of the word "surprise"--both in terms of the cumulative results and the subsequent abrupt resignation of Secretary Rumsfeld. Even when they're pleased by these developments, they seem a little perplexed. As am I. After all, how could all the critical races in this so-closely-divided nation tip to the Democrats? Didn't anyone care about the surging economy and the safety of the homeland since 9/11? The success of the actual military aspects of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns? The gathering storm we face? Sure, the aftermaths of these military interventions have been rocky and "corruption" was a big issue, but still, given the larger picture, how did this happen? And why on earth did Mr. Rumsfeld resign the very next day and not wait a decent interval to see the lie of the political land? The election seems to signal a sea change, and one so profound that it has prompted a major reassessment of the Iraq mission both in the White House and on the front page of this august blog.

Times like these make me glad my business is history, because just a brief jaunt through its pages reminds us that this is far from the worst thing that has ever happened. History tends not to end because of an election. Elections are part of an ongoing dynamic in which change is the catalyst for growth--but that growth is not always in a straight line. Have there been similar, equally surprising events in modern democracies? Might such elections reflect a peculiar set of contemporary circumstances, but not prove to be broader historical indicators? My answer to both questions is "yes." Of course, no historical episodes are precisely analogous and I have no doubt there are those who will point to disconnects between the events I juxtapose here, but I for one am finding some helpful perspective in two particular precedents: the elections in Great Britain in 1945 and 1990, when two once-apparently-invincible war leaders saw a sudden and dramatic decline in their popularity and were summarily handed their hats.

Read on...

[Editorial sidebar: you'll see in the following discussion that I've referenced earlier scholarship and contemporary accounts to demonstrate that the historical narrative we now take for granted was not always so certain. Unfortunately, most of these articles are not available free online, although if you have access to a research library system you will find them on a database like JSTOR. I put in links when possible]

For instance. In June, 1945 Britons took the extraordinary step of voting the Conservatives, the party that had just successfully shepherded the country through the Second World War, out of office. It was, to borrow a phrase from President Bush, a "thumping" in which Labour won a majority of 145 seats in the House of Commons thus forcing the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Winston Churchill (see T.D. Burridge, "A Postscript to Potsdam: The Churchill-Laski Electoral Clash, June 1945," Journal of Contemporary History 12 (1977), 725-739). Even though Gallup predicted a strong Labour showing, many, including Mr. Churchill, were "shocked and stunned" by the election results. Based on more conservative polling, not to mention his own gut conviction, he had told the King the night before that they would hold their majority. How could the Brits, who had shown themselves to be of such tough stuff over the past few years suddenly turn on the party that had preserved them through terrible crisis? On Mr. Churchill, who was still negotiating with foreign leaders on the conclusion of the war when the election took place? After all, this is Winston Churchill we're talking about, not George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld. Winston Churchill. And yet the response of the electorate appeared to be "don't let the door knob hit you on your way out."

Shocking, isn't it? But bear in mind that the modern histories we read now had not been written when voters went to the polls. Mr. Churchill had been heroic during the war, but he wasn't The Last Lion yet. Rather like Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld, he was still a human being, and a profoundly tired one at that, who had endured relentless criticism throughout his career. Who made the occasional mistake, notably in political judgment. Who was accused of being dismissive and autocratic and, worst of all, unwilling to suffer fools gladly. Who assumed that his country saw the new threat emerging in the form of the Soviet Union--another manifestation of the hateful totalitarianism that had produced the Third Reich--as clearly as he did. And who believed that his country, which had listened to so many of his speeches over the past few years, would understand that when he referred to the "Gestapo" in connection to his opponent Clement Attlee he was warning of the primrose path that could make such tactics seem to be necessary for the best possible reasons. But the public heard only one word. Gestapo. The assumption quickly spread that Mr. Churchill had called a fellow Englishman a Nazi, and as the horrors of the concentration camps were revealed in the press, it struck the worst possible chord. Furthermore, while Mr. Churchill was personally popular with the people, his larger government was far less so, and there were deep concerns about the ability of Conservatives to govern during peace time (see, for example, Henry Pelling, "The 1945 General Election Reconsidered," The Historical Journal 23 (1980), 399-414 and Mark Franklin and Matthew Ladner, "The Undoing of Winston Churchill: Mobilization and Conversion in the 1945 Realignment of British Voters," British Journal of Political Science 25, (1995), 429-452). After all, in this parliamentary system Mr. Churchill wasn't on the ballot; his party was.

A war-weary public were ready for something new. It didn't really matter any more what had kept them safe through the perilous times; they wanted to move on and think about other things. Things like social programs. Jobs. Health care. Welfare. The fruits of peace (for the foundation of the Labour platform, see Leo Wolman, "The Beveridge Report," Political Science Quarterly 58 (1943), 1-10). "Let's face the future," Labour famously proposed. Catchy slogan, isn't it? Brings to mind other catchy slogans about fresh starts and new beginnings. Britons were eager to move into that shining, peaceful and prosperous future, and Mr. Churchill's personal heroism wasn't enough to save the Conservatives. In fact, it may have become a liability--a reminder of difficult times that voters wanted to put behind them. Images of the PM standing on the roof of 10 Downing during the Blitz were already part of history--and there were no guarantees that he could "win the peace." Mr. Churchill didn't even promise peace and might just start another war; with his dire prognostications about the looming threat of the Soviet Union, he seemed a throwback to the past. Sure, he was great then, voters seemed to say. But he just doesn't get it now. Mr. Churchill's nemesis, socialist professor Harold Laski, had a far more popular and seemingly modern line: he agreed in 1940 that fighting the Nazis was a justified, if imperial, war--but strenuously opposed any other wars, especially against fellow, presumably peaceable, socialists. Mr. Churchill seemed hopelessly out-of-date by comparison (University of Minnesota professor Max Kampelman, writing in praise of Dr. Laski, said that Mr. Churchill "struggl[ed] to convince a grateful but skeptical twentieth-century audience with his nineteenth-century oratory that twentieth-century problems can be solved without upsetting the old world structure of aristocratic priviledge..." See Max W. Kampelman, "Harold J. Laski: A Current Analysis," The Journal of Politics 10 (1948), 131-154. For additional contemporary polling data that supports this analysis, see Frank V. Cantwell, "The Meaning of the British Election," Public Opinion Quarterly 9 (1945), 145-57).

And so British voters told Winston Churchill just where and when he could get off. Mr. Churchill took it personally--how could he not?--as he signed the guest book at Chequers "finis" on the following month and watched many of his old allies--even his proteges--make nice with the new Labour majority.

Remind you of anything?

Some additional food for thought from across the pond: Margaret Thatcher, shortly after participating in the destruction of the Soviet Union, not to mention winning the Falklands war, had the lowest approval ratings of any British Prime Minister in the previous half century and was forced from office in 1990. The Iron Lady seemed to be getting pretty rusty--in the press, she became something of a caricature of herself and was mocked for her famously combative persona. Wasn't such belligerence a little outdated? Things weren't so black-and-white any more. Practicality, dare I say realism, was required in a new era, which Mrs. Thatcher apparently did not understand. The opposition ridiculed her and many in her own party hastened to put distance between themselves and this Cold War dinosaur, who had become nothing but a liability as the new millennium approached. Mrs. Thatcher had refused to recognize her own irrelevance, and stayed too long to make a graceful and timely exit. She lost the requisite majority in her own party, and had to resign (see Philip Crowley and John Garry, "The British Conservative Party and Europe: The choosing of John Major," British Journal of Political Science 28 (1998), 473-499).

Scholars latched onto this meme, and proclaimed that Mrs. Thatcher's legacy would be dominated by the poll tax controversy and this humiliating defeat, which would eclipse all her other somewhat dubious achievements (see, for example, Ivor Crewe, "Values: The Crusade that Failed," The Thatcher Effect: A Decade of Change (Oxford: 1989), which includes the prediction that "Thatcherism will die with Thatcher" on pg. 250; Rodney Brazer, "The Downfall of Margaret Thatcher," The Modern Law Review 54 (1991), 471-91 and Peter Hennessey, "The Last Retreat of Fame: Mrs Thatcher as History," The Modern Law Review 54 (1991) 492-98, which begins with this gem: "Time, even a short span of it, can be very cruel to the once-mesmeric."). Remember that there were many in 1990 who feared that the collapse of the Soviet Union would result in violent chaos that would be far worse than the communist totalitarianism that proceeded it--and an ill-advised, poorly thought out and needlessly aggressive intervention was projected as Mrs. Thatcher's likely legacy ("But the returns of the gamble are not in," wrote Harvard professor Stanley Hoffman in 1990. He went on, "As for Margaret Thatcher, no one can deny that the British Prime Minister is a forceful leader, but her own strong performance shows the difference between great leadership and wrong leadership." Stanley Hoffman, "The Case for Leadership," Foreign Policy 81 (1990), 20-38. See also John J. Mearsheimer, "Back to the Future: Instability in Europe after the Cold War," International Security 15 (1990), 5-56 and Nils H. Wessel, "Alternative Soviet Futures and the New Europe," Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science 38, (1991), 153-163).

Sound familiar?

Of course there are differences between Great Britain in 1945 and 1990 and the United States in 2006. Each conflict, WWII, The Cold War, The Global War on Terror, has its own defining characteristics, and was at a different stage when the respective elections took place. George Bush does not resign in our system. But all the same, he had to make a major sacrifice in response to the election. A good man who has been toiling valiantly for our country in this war will no longer so toil because of last Tuesday--and to some extent these analogies apply as much if not more so to him than to Mr. Bush. I wonder if Mr. Rumsfeld signaled as much through manner of his resignation? Many opine that the Secretary of Defense was summarily fired by the President after the election, and are wondering at the political judgment behind the scheduling of the event. It is strange. I certainly accept the premise that Mr. Rumsfeld was not eager to leave his job, just as Mr. Churchill and Mrs. Thatcher were not, but given Mr. Bush's statement the previous week that Mr. Rumsfeld was welcome to stay as long as he liked in his administration, is it possible that the apparently-awkward timing of the resignation (not the ultimate decision but the timing) was Mr. Rumsfeld's choice? And that it was not a political one, but rather one made with an eye to how history might interpret this event? That once the votes were cast that sealed his fate as Secretary of Defense, he was not eager to take advantage of the cover Mr. Bush had given him and "save face," but rather made the American equivalent to the day-after trip to Buckingham Palace and tendered his resignation to the President? Such a gesture would certainly be in keeping with Mr. Rumsfeld's sense of history, and perhaps was for him the most seemly response to the results of this election. So he went to the White House, stood up beside Mr. Bush...and quoted Winston Churchill.

Those who find my historical analogies persuasive may be concerned that the peace we find in 2006 will prove as illusory as that of 1945 or 1990, when strong and aggressive leaders were thrown out of office by a war-weary public just as Soviet totalitarianism and Islamic extremism were rearing their heads. Such concern is justified. I believe the international situation is becoming so ominous that it's tempting to despair of the American people as they seem to reject a robust prosecution of the Iraq war--and by extension the Global War on Terror. Are they so fatally myopic that they will ignore the threat of the related "Axis of Evil" that I, Cassandra-like, see coalescing as I type? This unappetizing combination of aggressive totalitarian regimes and radical terrorists hasn't fully formed yet, and may seem unreal to the American populace that is sick of living at a war-time pitch--especially because it's hard for many to see that we are at war. That wants to treat Iraq as a discrete "situation" that can be handled, or at the very least finished already so we can get back to other things. That wants to relegate George Bush and, even more, Donald Rumsfeld to irrelevance because their time--war time--is over. Thanks for the swell job after 9/11, guys, but enough is enough with all the tough talk. That's only going to get us into trouble now and we've had enough of trouble--in fact, this is all taking far too long. A new era requires new voices, right? So the voters said, loud and clear, on November 7, 2006.

But history does provide solace for these dire reflections. 1945 and 1990 were not the end for either Mr. Churchill or Mrs. Thatcher, and these elections have not come to define their historical legacies. After all, Winston Churchill was far from "finis" when he left Chequers on that July day, and the dream of his own death that he took as a premonition of his political demise turned out to be premature. He returned to power six years later to commence, if not to finish, his country's struggle against the Soviet Union. Professor Laski, who seemed the face of the progressive future in 1945 in contrast with the hidebound and moribund Mr. Churchill, is little more than a historical footnote now. Statues of Joseph Stalin, who jeered at Mr. Churchill for not "fixing" his election and saw the defeat as a sign of his weakness, lie in ruins while Mr. Churchill was recently voted England's Greatest Son by popular acclaim. Few now free-associate "poll tax" with the Iron Lady, who brought Mr. Churchill's work to such a triumphant conclusion. Furthermore, would many now advocate returning to the Soviet system she helped to vanquish for the sake of greater stability? Or can we all agree that as perilous and uncertain as it seemed while it was unfolding, winning the Cold War was a good thing? Mrs. Thatcher has found in turn an unlikely successor in Prime Minister Tony Blair, who owes what spine he has shown to her example, and even has proven willing to risk his personal popularity to defend his nation. Perhaps the so-called historians who envisioned the dawn of a new socialist era in Britain in 1945, like those who were so eager to dance on Mrs. Thatcher's political grave in the aftermath of 1990, should have waited to see how the clearer perspective of posterity understood these elections.

The futures and legacies of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld no doubt will follow paths unlike those of Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher, but with history as my guide, I'm willing to hazard the guess that fifteen or forty years hence we will be able to look back at them and see something very different from what we see today. It's easy for their contemporary detractors--particularly Mr. Rumsfeld's--to accept conventional wisdom's assessment of Iraq and dismiss this analysis with the sneer that he's "no Winston Churchill." Are they so very sure? It might behoove us all, as we debate a war that's still going on, to remember that WWII and the Cold War were hardly straightline, triumphant trajectories that guaranteed long-term political success for those who fought and won them. Reviewing their histories, long-term vision and commitment to a just cause, what might be called "staying the course" even through difficult and uncertain times, emerges much more favorably in hindsight than does compromise or political expediency. I'm sure we'll debate the details of Iraq at great length today, but I believe that Mr. Rumsfeld, like Mr. Churchill and Mrs. Thatcher, will benefit from the historical perspective that has so radically revised the reputations of both PMs far more than those who won the election on Tuesday (the only bona fide historian I have seen weigh in on this topic suggests as much). When Mr. Churchill lost in 1945, he was not the historical figure that we understand now. Our impression of Margaret Thatcher was very different in 1990 than it is today. The 2006 election happened, Mr. Bush's party lost, and Mr. Rumsfeld resigned. But as we assess Iraq and the progress of the GWoT under his watch, it seems to me premature and short-sighted--potentially even completely wrongheaded--to conclude on this basis that Mr. Rumsfeld's (or Mr. Bush's, or Iraq's for that matter) chapter of history is even over, let alone conclusively written.