Why Bush's war threats have extra gravitas

Washington types like to play a parlor game that might be called "What If?" Here's one round: What if Bill Clinton had still been president on Sept. 11?

The former chief executive himself has almost complained that he led the nation in dull times, deprived of an opportunity for greatness. Indeed, says presidential scholar Fred Greenstein of Princeton University, there would be great similarity between Presidents Clinton and Bush - or almost-President Al Gore and Bush - in the immediate handling of a 9/11-magnitude event. "There's a kind of DNA for presidents in crisis," Professor Greenstein says. "You rally the nation; you don't sit down and let the nation be blasted."

But in the longer-term fallout of Sept. 11, Bush has carved out an approach to war and terrorism marked by discipline, simplicity, and directness - and none of Mr. Clinton's reluctance to put American troops in danger. The result, on one level, is an Arab and Muslim world that now takes American power seriously and, so far, is producing results in Iraq.

The president's response to North Korea's move toward resuming its nuclear-weapons program has also been typically bold. The administration has been forcing its allies in the region to pursue a diplomatic solution to the situation. The president has refused to negotiate with North Korea until they halt their nuclear program.

Bush's unequivocal style in foreign policy matters, to be sure, could also lead the US into a war with Iraq that could have dire consequences. Already, his approach is contributing to growing anti-Americanism in Arab countries. But in erasing some of the post-Vietnam reluctance to use force, he has also created a less ambiguous, even if largely unsympathetic, view of the US in Arab capitals.

"While Bill Clinton was not taken seriously by leaders in the world of Islam, George W. Bush is taken very seriously, and his words - unequivocally - are seen as quite decisive," says Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East scholar at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., who travels frequently to the region.

During Clinton's presidency, the military saw him as a draft dodger who harmed morale with his effort to allow gays to serve. Retaliation by cruise missile - not "boots on the ground," as Bush likes to refer to deployment - was a typical response to anti-American actions, such as the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the alleged Iraqi plot to kill the first President Bush. (Middle East leaders now see that second episode as giving the current President Bush all the more reason to go after Saddam Hussein. And Bush the younger's avoidance of active duty during Vietnam appears to be a nonfactor in his relations with the military today.)

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