President Bush's powerful May 7 speech in Riga marking the 60th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany has created a firestrom across the political spectrum. Conservatives, of course, loved the speech, appreciating any diminution of the Soviet role in the war, but especially the none-too-subtle assault on FDR. Liberals predictably (and I would argue, rightly) objected to Bush's butchering of history, especially his grotesque equation of Yalta with Munich and the 1939 Nazi-Soviet Nonaggression Pact.

What commentators on both sides are missing, though, is that the Bush speech was not an apology to Eastern Europeans for past American policy. Instead, it was meant as an aggressive justification for today's Bush Doctrine in the Middle East.

First, a little background. This passage from the President's Riga address has drawn the most attention:

"As we mark a victory of six days ago -- six decades ago, we are mindful of a paradox. For much of Germany, defeat led to freedom. For much of Eastern and Central Europe, victory brought the iron rule of another empire. V-E Day marked the end of fascism, but it did not end oppression. The agreement at Yalta followed in the unjust tradition of Munich and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Once again, when powerful governments negotiated, the freedom of small nations was somehow expendable. Yet this attempt to sacrifice freedom for the sake of stability left a continent divided and unstable. The captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history."

Conservatives were quick to applaud Bush for giving them this rhetorical club in the fight against a "liberal revisionism" they claim downplays the American role in the WWII victory over fascist Germany. For Victor Davis Hanson at the NRO, "the only consistent theme in this various second-guessing was a diminution of the American contribution and suspicion of our very motives." Comically, Mark Noonan writes, "the leftwing intelligentsia of the United States wishes us to forget; and if not forget, at least misunderstand our past." Better still for the right, Bush's attack on FDR is a helpful historical analogy in their battle against Roosevelt's main domestic legacy, Social Security.

The response across the center and the left has been unified: it is the President and his fellow-travelers who are perverting history for partisan ends. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. stated that obvious; by Yalta, Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was a fait acccompli. Neither the American public nor the U.S. military would have accepted brinksmanship and conflict with the Red Army, especially with the war against Japan still raging. Jacob Heilbrunn and Joe Conason provide a vigorous defense of FDR, especially in rejecting Bush's slanderous equivalence of Yalta with Munich's sacrifice of Czechoslovakia and the Motolov-Ribbentrop Pact's carve up of Poland. As Heilbrunn noted, "Roosevelt's record is no cause for shame, but Bush's comments are."

Bush's rape of the historical record does not do conservatives of yore any favors. After all, it was the Republican Party who made up the isolationist movement in the United States until Pearl Harbor. Ann Coulter not withstanding, it was FDR who beginning in 1940 battled to supply the British and Soviets and to prepare the American military for the war he knew was coming. Worse still for Bush 43, if "the captivity of millions in Central and Eastern Europe will be remembered as one of the greatest wrongs of history," then his father's decision not to March on Baghdad in 1991 and depose Saddam Hussein must also be counted an act of betrayal of the liberty of millions.

So why, in the words of the Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum, "did Bush mention Yalta at all?" Drum asks the key question:

"So who was the reference aimed at? Not just the Latvians, that's for sure. Bush is a master of using codewords in his speeches, and inserting Yalta into this speech wasn't a casual decision. It was there for someone. Who?"

Jacob Levy of the University of Chicago thinks he has the answer. In the increasingly schizophrenic New Republic, Levy praised Bush's Latvian address as "a diplomatic masterstroke" aimed at redefining U.S.-Russian relations in his second term. But given the subsequent Bush-Putin lovefest in Moscow, Levy's analysis doesn't hold water. The Bush administration is concerned about Putin's growing centralization of power and his aid to the Iranian nuclear program, but simply is not ratcheting up the pressure.

No, Bush's message was not targeting crowds in Riga, Vilnius or Talinn. He was neither admonishing the nascent autocrats in Moscow nor playing to the John Birch Society at home. Instead, George Bush was using - or more accurately, misusing - history to make the case for the Bush Doctrine call for democracy promotion in the Middle East and around the world.

In Riga, Bush was trying to establish a clear parallel between the liberation unfinished in 1945 and the spread of democracy to the Middle East in 2005. The setup:

"The end of World War II raised unavoidable questions for my country: Had we fought and sacrificed only to achieve the permanent division of Europe into armed camps? Or did the cause of freedom and the rights of nations require more of us?...We set the vision of a Europe whole, free, and at peace -- so dictators could no longer rise up and feed ancient grievances, and conflict would not be repeated again and again.

In these decades of struggle and purpose, the Baltic peoples kept a long vigil of suffering and hope. Though you lived in isolation, you were not alone...The defense of your freedom -- in defense of your freedom you will never stand alone."

From there, it is just a short leap for Bush to the forceful expansion of democracy in the Middle East.

"The next stage of the world democratic movement is already unfolding in the broader Middle East...We seek democracy in that region for the same reasons we spent decades working for democracy in Europe -- because freedom is the only reliable path to peace. If the Middle East continues to simmer in anger and resentment and hopelessness, caught in a cycle of repression and radicalism, it will produce terrorism of even greater audacity and destructive power. But if the peoples of that region gain the right of self-government, and find hopes to replace their hatreds, then the security of all free nations will be strengthened. We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability. We have learned our lesson; no one's liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others. And so, with confidence and resolve, we will stand for freedom across the broader Middle East."[underline mine]

Only in the context of the war in Iraq and what passes for the Bush Doctrine does the Yalta reference make sense. The President's point: just as the United States and the West were wrong not to fight to free the Baltics in 1945, America and the international community would be wrong not to fight to liberate Arab peoples in the Middle East today.

In this, of course, Bush to advance his agenda is abusing history, just as he does science. Matthew Yglesias of the American Prospect sadly concludes, "a little historical inaccuracy is more than forgiveable in pursuit of legitimate diplomatic objectives." As with President Bush's perversion of the legacy of Yalta, I couldn't disagree more.

—Perrspective 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) |