The Manifest Destiny of President George W. Bush

A Worldwide Freedom Fighter Reversing a Pattern of Military Compromise – Guided by Principle

By Sara Pentz

In 1845, John O'Sullivan, editor of the influential publication, Democratic Review, coined the phrase Manifest Destiny to describe this vision of a United States stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The phrase was used at that time to explain a revitalized sense of ‘mission’ or a national destiny for Americans. It was our destiny, Sullivan wrote, to spread the idea of freedom and, therefore, take the opportunities made from that freedom to increase one’s wealth, self-sufficiency and self-advancement.

One hundred sixty years later, President George W. Bush has taken the soul of that document and made it a reality. He has led the world in the spread of freedom to Afghanistan, Iraq, and now into an emerging democracy in the Middle East. It is a tribute to his understanding of justice and liberty that he understands that sacred document and has made it his own.

In his January 20, 2005 inaugural address, President Bush spoke to this issue:

“The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value…. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.”

Of course, it is critical to understand that President Bush believed, based on intelligence sources, that there were weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussain possessed. His decision was based on that premise.

Many attribute the early successes of his secondary mission into Iraq to the principled leadership of President Ronald Reagan in the l980s or to the success of Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America’ in the l990s. Certainly, by standing steadfastly for democracy, freedom and the rights of man, President Reagan was instrumental in the demise of communism in the Soviet Union. That achievement opened much of Eastern Europe to freedom––making possible the right to own property and speak freely––each concept today’s political leftists loath.

Mr. Gingrich led the Republican House of Representatives in a promise of fiscal responsibility, cuts in social spending, a focus on personal responsibility, legal reform, greater national security, and the so-called restoration of the ‘American Dream’ for the people of this nation. While not all of this has become a reality, at least, Mr. Gingrich brought the issues to the attention of an American public that––for the most part––longed for such reforms. More concepts loathed by political leftists.

In fact, these two leaders––Reagan and Gingrich––were simply advocating the principles of Ancient Greece, as outlined by Victor David Hanson in an April 2005 article published at National Review Online. Because, he writes, it was in Greece where economic freedom and consensual government had taken root. Freedom grew through the centuries wherever these concepts were alive. “The revolution that started in 1776, we sometimes forget,” explains Hanson, “was possible because of nearly two prior centuries of English relatively liberal colonial rule, under which small landowners and shopkeepers enjoyed property rights and participated in local councils despite a distant king.”

But more than anything, it was the concept of Manifest Destiny that confirmed the commitment by Mr. Bush to take the lead in opening new and dark frontiers to democracy. The Manifest Destiny document eloquently states the inherent right of man to spread the destiny of freedom around the world:

“It is so destined, because the principle upon which a nation is organized fixes its destiny, and that of equality is perfect, is universal.

…the self-evident dictates of morality…accurately define the duty of man to man, and consequently man's rights as man. Besides, the truthful annals of any nation furnish abundant evidence, that its happiness, its greatness, its duration, were always proportionate to the democratic equality in its system of government…

Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals; and while truth sheds its effulgence, we cannot retrograde, without dissolving the one and subverting the other.”

No other leader in this country’s history has furthered the concept of Manifest Destiny than the 43^rd President. After September 11, 2001, in which terrorists from the Arab Middle East unilaterally and with no provocation attacked this country, it was incumbent upon President Bush to demonstrate with force that this county would not tolerate such an infringement upon the rights of man as the death and destruction caused by these horrendous attackers. It was his duty to defend America. There can be no disagreement about this fact. Even Democrats agree––reluctantly.

Mr. Bush, however, retaliated not so much for the sake of revenge as for the principle that freedom is the correct and only foundation for humanity. Retaliation to this initiation of force was our right. Mr. Hanson, a military historian and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, makes this clear in that same article:

“… the dilemma was an exclusively autocratic Arab Middle East. It was a mess where every bankrupt and murderous notion — Soviet-style Communism, crack-pot Baathism, radical pan-Arabism, lunatic Khadafism, "moderate" monarchy, old-style dictatorship, and eighth-century theocracy — had been tried and had failed, with terrible consequences well before September 11.

Only democracy was new. And only democracy — and its twin of open-market capitalism — offered any hope to end the plague of tribalism, gender apartheid, human-rights abuses, religious fanaticism, and patriarchy that so flourished within such closed societies.”

In a brilliant article by Jamie Glazov for FrontPageMagazine.com, April 8, 2005, Mr. Glazov outlines how President Bush differs from other leaders who throughout history were reluctant to fight inexorably for freedom:

“In the Vietnam War the United States had undertaken to support a dictatorship in South Vietnam on the grounds that the dictatorship was also anti-Communist, and therefore a lesser evil than a unified Communist Vietnam. Some on the left supported the Communist totalitarians. But many “New Leftists” were self-declared “anti-totalitarians” who believed that Communism was a flawed attempt to create just societies. Moreover, they did not believe that the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam was a Communist pawn (as it was) but a quasi independent socialist and/or nationalist force. Their argument for opposing the United States defense of the South Vietnamese regime was that a victory for the NLF would mean the emergence of an independent Vietnam committed to the principles of equality and justice. This was an incentive to see that America was defeated. And this indeed is the delusional vision that motivated people like Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda and other anti-war activists, who worked to cut off all aid to the regime in South Vietnam (and Cambodia as well) that was fighting for its life against the Communists.

But in Iraq, America did not set out to defend a dictatorship for whatever reasons. It set out to overthrow one. In Iraq the United States overthrew a monster regime, and liberated women and Iraq’s minorities -- and the left did everything in its power to prevent this. The practical actions of the left were to save the regime of Saddam Hussein. But what could saving Saddam Hussein mean but more corpses shoveled into mass graves, more human beings stuffed into plastic shredders, more terror for the Iraqi people, and further deferment of the rights of women and other minorities.

Even after Saddam Hussein was toppled, the left’s agendas were primarily to bring down the Bush Administration, not to help American forces to consolidate the peace or establish an Iraqi democratic state.”

Even in the Korean War politicians refused to allow a clear cut military victory over the North Korean and Chinese communists––a plan that would have overpowered the communists and ended in a victory. They chose to protect a corrupt regime in South Korea in the same way that those in political power supported the corrupt regime in South Vietnam. And by cooperating with corruption in both military instances, the concept of ‘winning’ a war––and ‘defeating’ dictators––was impossible. And the leftists won a political victory by default.

However, the leftists are not winning a philosophical battle in Iraq. Mr. Bush’s crystal clear goal to eradicate the horrors of Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq should be applauded––even if for solid reasons we do not agree with many of his other international, domestic, religious and political policies and practices. These flaws do not undermine his military successes and political courage.

Mr. Bush’s principled leadership in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan will not be lost in history––despite strident criticism from his enemies, name-calling by miscreants, shrill attacks by apologists, compromisers, bureaucratic career diplomats, politically motivated leftists, and the bashing diatribes of effete university and self-professed intellectuals who are bent on coloring future historical documents with the cloud of their partisanship.

For President Bush the commitment is to freedom and individual rights. These are the principles that are manifest in the victories of Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether there are confusions in other areas of his presidency or not, he deserves the kudos of his brethren––both friend and foe. Even now a very small number of his avowed enemies are coming forth with cautious acknowledgement of his successes––while eating lightly baked crow at the same time, most assuredly.

Leave it to a TV game show host to make the following point. Political commentator Pat Sajak has written an article for Human Events opining about a few prominent, decidedly leftwing pundits who are now beginning to accept Mr. Bush’s initial successes in the Middle East:

“It’s difficult to pin down the exact genesis of epochal world events such as the demise of The Soviet Union. It’s harder still to look at small, isolated events and accurately predict they will lead to major developments. But an extraordinary column by Martin Peretz, the Editor-in-Chief of The New Republic may be one of those small events which could lead to a major shift in American political discourse.

The New Republic is a Liberal magazine which has been tough on Conservatives in general and George W. Bush in particular. And, yet, here comes Mr. Peretz with an article for the April 11 issue of his magazine… in which he thoroughly and thoughtfully looks at events in the Middle East and judges them to be positive and, what’s more, gives full and ungrudging credit to President Bush.

At the same time he chides Democrats for their unrelenting negativity and suggests they had better stop ignoring the tides of history out of distaste for the President. (Indeed, the article is called The Politics of Churlishness.) As Mr. Peretz puts it, “If George W. Bush were to discover a cure for cancer, his critics would denounce him for having done it unilaterally, without adequate consultation, with a crude disregard for the sensibilities of others.”

Martin Peretz is leading the pact toward an acknowledgement of President Bush’s successes in Iraq. Whether or not other Liberals and Democrats ever acknowledge what Mr. Peretz so boldly states is not the issue. They may be too steeped in their belief that America is wrong––no matter what. Despite all their anti-Bush speechifying, the rest of the country is acknowledging that this president is a freedom fighter––as he continues to draw his personalized map for manifest destiny throughout the world.

This article was written April 2005.