As he aspires to be the GOP's standard-bearer next year, Jeb Bush has been asked about his position on Iraq; would he have supported the United States' military intervention back in 2003, knowing all we know now?
During the first few days of being queried, it seemed as if Jeb was skittering all over the planet in his quest to find a comfortable response: yes, maybe, it depends, and ultimately settling on a less-than-sincere-sounding "no".
Having to endure living under Big Brother Dubya's shadow, Jeb has been heard to declare, "I am my own man". You know something? I believe him. Here's why.
Consider The Project for a New American Century (PNAC), a conservative think-tank funded largely by military contractors. The most prominent among these arms merchants were the Bechtel Corporation --- once headed by Donald Rumsfeld --- and Dick Cheney's Halliburton Corporation, which also held significant oil interests. PNAC was established in 1997 --- a year with no significant unrest requiring military action. Those military-industrial heavy-hitters and their Pentagon pals were hot to trot to rediscover meaning to their existence. Enter PNAC, stage right. Extreme right!
Established as a non-profit educational organization, their reason for existence was "to promote American global leadership" with an emphasis on "a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity": In other words, American Exceptionalism. Their policy priorities were so intensely centered on the above tenets, they were totally tone-deaf to the needs and values of every other nation on earth.
When PNAC was launched, 25 of its strongest supporters cosigned the organization's "Statement of Principle". Ten among those 25 became prominent foreign policy advisors during the presidency of George W. Bush. Among those ten were the principal architects of our nation's tragic misadventure in Iraq: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz. I think it's safe to assume that everyone in PNAC was totally on board with this. Other signatories of note included J. Danforth Quayle (otherwise known as "Dan"), and yep, a fella named John Ellis "Jeb" Bush). No, not Big Brother Dubya! Jeb!
So, returning to the original question: What would Presidential Candidate Jeb have done vis-a-vis Iraq? Because he was such a gung-ho acolyte of PNAC, there shouldn't be any doubt. I believe it would be fair to assume that Jeb read that "Statement of Principle" before he signed it. After all, he's widely considered to be "The Smart Bush".
So there's precious little doubt in my mind that Jeb is his "own man" as he insists. But I'm not sure that the same could be said for Big Brother Dubya.
Former President Cheney would probably concur.
