The Poker Player in Chief

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It is true that Colin Powell was allowed to be diplomatic at the U.N. last fall, negotiating a unanimous vote on Security Council Resolution 1441, but that was an exception. Powell's bolder attempts at diplomacy--the attempt to negotiate with North Korea in 2001 and with Yasser Arafat in 2002--have been thwarted by the White House. Arrogance has filled the vacuum. Significant allies like Turkey are bullied or bribed, or both; they are not consulted and not listened to. Even when the President says he wants to achieve a diplomatic solution, as in North Korea, he does so undiplomatically, against the advice of our allies, refusing to negotiate directly with the North Koreans. "This is a game of chicken," a diplomat told me, "and everyone except the President seems to understand that he is going to blink first."

Bush's plain talk is often bracing. His challenge to the U.N. over Iraq's intransigence is a good thing; it is what Bill Clinton should have done when Saddam Hussein thwarted inspections in 1998. And in the short run, Bush will have his way--in Iraq, certainly; rolling up al-Qaeda, probably; perhaps with Turkey and at the Security Council as well. But he has been extremely careless in the process, and there are bound to be consequences. The consequences in postwar Iraq are unknowable. The consequences in North Korea--the production and sale of plutonium, or a military effort to thwart such sales--could be cataclysmic. The transatlantic consequences may become more apparent after the war is over: the French, no doubt, have enjoyed their leading role in the current melodrama and may seek to make it permanent. They may attempt to organize a new alliance--a loose one, no doubt--to thwart American power. The portents are clear: it will be harder and harder for America to have its way, diplomatically, in the world.

George W. Bush seems destined to be a spectacular President--of some sort. He combines the idealism of Woodrow Wilson with the bravado of Theodore Roosevelt, but these were not always their best qualities. And he lacks the rigor, the love of learning, of either man. There is no ballast to this Administration, and we are going to war.