U.S. has paid a huge price for Bush's learning curve

Other views

Thomas Friedman

WASHINGTON - Watching the Bush team wrestle with Iran, North Korea and Iraq reminds me of something that used to be said of the Reagan administration: The right hand never knew what the far right hand was doing.

In fact, my bet is that when the inside history of the Bush team is written, we will discover that, contrary to its carefully managed image of a disciplined core operating from consistent, conservative principles, it has actually been one of the most internally divided administrations - ever.

The only thing the Bush folks all agreed on was that they would never do anything Bill Clinton did. Beyond that, it's been a food fight. The trial of Scooter Libby - with its testimony about wars between the VP's office and the White House, the White House and the CIA, and everyone against the State Department - proves that beyond a reasonable doubt.

When the former Bush U.N. ambassador John Bolton trashed the president's recent deal with North Korea as a "charade," though, he highlighted the biggest internal division of all within the Bush team: how to deal with rogue regimes like Iran, North Korea and Saddam's Iraq - whether to go for regime change or behavior change.

On Iran and North Korea, "this administration does not have clear policies, it has competing impulses," said Robert Litwak of the Wilson Center, who just published a smart book on this theme: "Regime Change: U.S. Strategy Through the Prism of 9/11." "The administration's mantra is 'all options are on the table.' But the dilemma is that too many objectives are on the table as well."

Because this administration was divided for so long on Iran and North Korea, over regime change or behavior change, it got neither. All it got was that Iran and North Korea both went out and bought Bush insurance: a nuclear weapons program.

More...