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Signs of Intelligent Leadership
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Looking for Signs of Intelligent Leadership
by R.W. Burniske
When did an inflexible intellect become so desirable?
The Bush campaign seems convinced that a commander-in-chief should never change his mind about war. Perhaps they should acquaint themselves with the habits of mind that led Napoleon to Waterloo, Custer to Little Bighorn, and British commanders to Gallipoli. At once ironic and tragic, those 19th and 20th century events reveal the folly of inflexible, arrogant leadership.
Personally, I would prefer a different kind of leader for the 21st century.
Like most people, I admire a leader with supple intelligence. I want a president capable of entertaining new ideas and sorting out complex issues in a thoughtful, deliberate manner. I do not believe we live in a black and white world where people are either “with us or with the terrorists.” I am not impressed when Dick Cheney informs the public, as he did at a breakfast for Ohio delegates at the Republican National Convention, that President Bush "doesn't agonize" over his decisions. I would prefer that the individual responsible for sending 1000 American soldiers to their death not only agonize over that decision, but lose several nights' sleep after making it.
After all, Bush made that decision based upon the “faulty intelligence” fabricated by miscreants like Ahmad Chalabi, the exiled Iraqi who derived pleasure, and a handsome fee, from the lies he told our “resolute” leaders. Bush also based his decision upon the “faulty intelligence” squeezed from CIA agents who, like Richard Clarke, were ordered to find a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda.
After 9/11, American citizens, congressmen and media seldom questioned the intelligence of the Bush administration. Collectively, we wrote a blank check that enabled our leader to wage a pre-emptive war against a nation posing no imminent threat, kill thousands of its citizens, and alienate our nation from international allies.
Our acquiescence allowed inflexible leaders to become dictators of public discourse. Patriotism was defined by support for the Iraqi invasion; only the unpatriotic criticized the president or foreign policies, including the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. They now wish to make the terms resolute and steadfast integral to the definition of good leadership.
If the Patriot Act will allow it, may I ask a few questions?
- Is it better for a leader to remain resolute even when he has made the wrong decision, than to be open-minded, and capable of change, when new information comes to light?
- In Vietnam, how much did American troops and foreign policies benefit from the steadfast course that LBJ set and Nixon followed?
- If a president reflects our nation’s values, what does it say about us if we re-elect an individual who repeatedly demonstrates limited, inflexible intelligence?
Since the selection of this president by the Supreme Court in December 2000, I have periodically worked as an educational consultant in Brazil, Chile, India, Jordan, South Africa, Thailand, and Uganda. In each country, my hosts graciously offered the benefit of a doubt during political discussions. “We have no problem with the American people,” they would say, “only with the American government.”
They kindly excused the mistake that America made in 2000 because they realized many voters did not know George W. Bush when they cast their ballot that year. But if we re-elect him, embracing his limited intelligence and inflexible leadership, we forfeit that excuse and bring a pox upon our house.
Then our friends around the world will have a problem with the American people. They’ll question our collective intelligence. They’ll wonder how we could empower people who behave more like the inflexible dictators of developing countries than the enlightened statesmen expected of the world’s leading democracy.
Worst of all, they will distrust our leadership.
If you doubt such claims, imagine this scenario: during the 2005 State of the Union address, the President of the United States calls for a “coalition of the willing” to take pre-emptive military action in Syria. The president describes Damascus as an “imminent threat” to peace-loving nations, claiming that it harbors weapons of mass destruction and fosters terrorist networks.
Would you believe that message if it came from the same president who made similar charges against Iraq? Would international leaders believe him? Would his leadership persuade them to join a coalition to support military intervention? Would they defer to this individual and trust his judgment as the operation’s commander-in-chief?
The time has come for a change of leadership in Washington.
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