THE WOUNDED PRESIDENT & The Nuclear Option

"Security is the mother of danger and the grandmother of destruction." Thomas Fuller.

In the waning days of the Vietnam War, when the light at the end of the tunnel had long since extinguished, Dick Nixon implored his foreign policy guru, Henry Kissinger, to think big. He was burning to drop the big one in China’s back yard.

It did not happen but it could have. If the curtain on his presidency and, indeed, his legacy had dropped before the curtain on the war, a wounded president would have lacked rational restraint. His advisers may have tried to talk him down but, in the end, it is the president alone that has his finger on the nuclear trigger.

In an addendum to the Bush Doctrine (not yet approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld), while the nation was focused on the horrors of New Orleans, the administration moved to a new policy on first use of nuclear weapons: preemptive strike. Still hopeful that Congress will approve funding for a new generation of deployable tactical nukes, the administration wants the full arsenal and all options on the table. (It is my considered but speculative opinion that the military has not waited for direct congressional funding. The tactical nuke is fully developed and ready for deployment.)

The president is down. Without a teleprompter, he is a posturing fool, a little boy lost in a dense and unfriendly forest. Support is plummeting and every successive drop in the polls seems to register on his perplexed face. With every tired platitude and overworked cliché, he seems to be arguing with an unseen adversary. He has utterly squandered what he perceived as political capital and the constant strain is pushing him to the edge like a daredevil skateboarder who realizes in midair that he has over-rotated and is bound to crash.

One year in to his second term, his presidency is mortally wounded and, like the people of the ninth ward in New Orleans, no one will answer his desperate cry for help.

Like so many things in life and politics, there is both a dark and light side to a wounded White House. The light side may have been manifest in his Supreme Court appointments. However one reads the nominees, it could have been worse. (It could have been a Bork and a Thomas with Scalia as Chief Justice.) Without a dramatic turnabout, social security reform is dead. The Patriot Act (though still egregious) will be softened and permanent tax cuts for the elite is no longer in the Bush horoscope. If the Democrats had any spine, repeal of Medicare reform and the Bush energy policy would be possible. Finally and most critically, it is all but inconceivable that this administration could sell another war.

The dark side is that it is still possible. What we have learned about the mind of the president is that it is simple and stubbornly focused. To George W. Bush a change in strategy, policy or philosophy (such as it is) is a sign of weakness. We know that he was determined to be a war president long before he ever stepped into the Oval Office. The events of September 11, 2001 provided an opportunity and he grabbed it like a brass ring on a merry-go-round. Afghanistan was not enough. It had to be Iraq. He had to finish what daddy started.

Having won a second term (against an inept opponent and with the assistance of the Ohio Secretary of State), he achieved the first major objective of his presidency: he did daddy one better. His next objective was to leave a legacy that would rival or better Ronald Reagan: Permanent tax cuts, evisceration of Medicare, and a poison pill for social security.

Little wonder the president is in a daze, desperate, confused and shaken. His legacy has vanished like a desert mirage. His detractors were right all along: he will go down in history as one of the monumental failures in American leadership. The architect (Karl Rove) and the brain (Dick Cheney) are two steps away from indictment. His party is in shambles, divided and under constant fire.

The president has never been more dangerous. He believes in his simple soul that the only way to reverse his fortune is to reclaim his role as commander-in-chief. He is hardly content even with the most optimistic assessments of his commanders in the field: a long occupation with an uncertain resolution. He wants more. Against all reason, he wants a decisive victory in short order.

How long will it be before he pulls Rummy aside and implores him, as Nixon did to Kissinger: Think big! Let’s drop the big one now.

Will Rummy possess the power of persuasion and the judicial restraint that Kissinger (for all his murderous flaws) ultimately did? Will the president go over the edge?

In the end, it is the president alone that has his finger on the nuclear trigger. Given the least excuse – an Iranian threat, a false report, a terrorist attack – and all the rules of presidential conduct are abolished: preemptive nuclear strike.

You might think this scenario improbable (I hope you are right) but the fact is there is very little we could do to prevent it. A wounded president is a dangerous man. A wounded president with unprecedented nuclear authorization is unimaginably so.

Under the present circumstances, rather than passively allowing an expansion of the Bush Doctrine to include nuclear weapons, should we not be moving in the opposite direction? Should not our guardians in Congress be affirming the principle of "no first use"?

If there is a lesson to be learned, it is this: We should be very careful about whom we hand the rings of power. The presidency of the most powerful nation on earth should never be trusted to a man who would be inadequate as a first grade teacher.

Preemptive nuclear strike? Given the record of our first official preemptive war, introducing the nuclear option is worse than arrogance; it is testament to a reckless indifference to reality. We have observed firsthand that our government’s certainty regarding weapons of mass destruction is anything but certain. Shall we now announce to the world that we are ready and willing to drop the big one based on the same level of certainty?

Let our leaders in Congress take a little time off from steroids in baseball and posturing for Supreme Court nominees that will inevitably be confirmed, to debate the future of the human race.

Jazz.

JACK RANDOM IS THE AUTHOR OF THE JAZZMAN CHRONICLES (CROW DOG PRESS) AND GHOST DANCE INSURRECTION (DRY BONES PRESS). THE CHRONICLES HAVE BEEN POSTED ON DISSIDENT VOICE, THE ALBION MONITOR & COUNTERPUNCH.

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