After starting a war that has become a plague, which will likely last decades, and leaving the economy in shambles, I never thought I would feel complimentary toward President George W. Bush. But watch this CNN interview with Jeb Bush and see if you agree.
In the interview with Jeb Bush, he says 5 or 6 times that “we need a strategy to deal with Islamic terrorism.”
When asked what the strategy should be, he lists a bunch of tactics including enforce a no-fly zone, give aid to the Assad opposition, etc. He never suggests a strategy.
The interviewer eventually shows a speech by former Governor George W. Bush in which he says, “The face of terrorism is not the true face of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t represent peace. They represent evil and war.”
Therein lies a strategy. If you can position terrorists as not being Islam and acknowledge Islam as one of the world’s great religions, you can (1) put terrorists on the defensive in their cultural and social campaign; (2) rally the Islam world in showing support for their religion; (3) stand more chance of gaining support from Islamic political and religious leaders that we all need to fight against terrorism.
President Bush’s problem was that he chose the wrong tactics to pursue the strategy and that brought disastrous consequences. You can’t say you’re one thing and then, go out and act like another. When he got his MBA, he must have passed the strategy course and flunked the one on implementation.
The next question to Governor Jeb Bush after showing his brother’s statements was “Is Islam peace, Governor?”
To which he responds, “You know what? I know what Islamic terrorism is and that’s what we are fighting in ISIS, Al Qaeda and all the other groups and that’s what our focus should be on.”
In this response, he first equates Islam with terrorism, which, if a strategy, is self-defeating as there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. That’s almost one-quarter of the world’s population. If you’re going to go out of your way to offend a religion, pick the Wiccans. I don’t know what they believe but they’re only 134,000 of them. (That’s up from 8,000 in 1990 so maybe we should be looking into their affairs.)
I think the lesson here is that if you’re going to run for President, don’t assume everyone you’re talking to is an idiot. Some of us understand that tactics without strategy is like running in circles. You might make a lot of noise, but you’ll never reach your objective.
Tags: Al Qaeda, Assumptions, CNN, George W. Bush, ISIS, Islam, Jeb Bush, Leadership, MBA, Media, Muslims, no-fly zone, Outcomes, Politicians, Republicans, Situation Analysis, Strategy, Tactics, Terrorism, Winning
