Reply #12: I actually thought this was a complex column, expressing a skepticism about Bush's sanity [View All]

and his grip on reality. It is obscured by its having been presented in that annoying toadyish Brooks way. I was reading it practically with my jaw dropped, wondering how the hell anyone could take seriously a column in which *Bush* rambles on about *leadership* as a sign of reason for optimism about Bush and his grasp of Iraq.

But the column takes a turn at the end and lets a wiser man from history have the last word.

Here is the kicker, which Think Progress doesn't refer to (my emphases):

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/17/opinion/17brooks.html?hp


When Bush talks about world affairs more generally, he talks about national leaders. When he is asked to analyze Iraq, he talks about Maliki. With Russia, it’s Putin. With Europe, it’s Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown and the rest.

He is confident in his ability to read other leaders: Who has courage? Who has a chip on his shoulder? And he is confident that in reading the individual character of leaders, he is reading the tablet that really matters. History is driven by the club of those in power. When far-sighted leaders change laws and institutions, they have the power to transform people.

Many will doubt this, but Bush is a smart and compelling presence in person, and only the whispering voice of Leo Tolstoy holds one back.

Tolstoy had a very different theory of history. Tolstoy believed great leaders are puffed-up popinjays. They think their public decisions shape history, but really it is the everyday experiences of millions of people which organically and chaotically shape the destiny of nations — from the bottom up.

According to this view, societies are infinitely complex. They can’t be understood or directed by a group of politicians in the White House or the Green Zone. Societies move and breathe on their own, through the jostling of mentalities and habits. Politics is a thin crust on the surface of culture. Political leaders can only play a tiny role in transforming a people, especially when the integral fabric of society has dissolved.

If Bush’s theory of history is correct, the right security plan can lead to safety, the right political compromises to stability. But if Tolstoy is right, then the future of Iraq is beyond the reach of global summits, political benchmarks and the understanding of any chief executive.