Bush in Africa: Unexpected Encomiums

David Aikman

President Bush has not exactly been above the fold of the front pages of most American newspapers these days, let alone on prime-time TV news. Understandably, with one of the most interesting presidential election cycles in decades well under way, attention has been focused on whoever is considered most likely to be Bush’s successor as the tenant of Washington’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in just eleven months. Many people—especially Democrats, who smell blood and victory in November 2008—wish that the President would just go away. His popularity is quite low, with poll numbers regularly in the 30s. Past months have even had him rated in California within two points of President Richard Nixon after Watergate, and Reuters last October pegged him at 24 percent. (At the same time, however, Gallup had him in the 30s).

But the President doesn’t have to go away until noon on January 20, 2009, and as President Nixon once famously remarked, even three weeks is a long, long time in American politics. Every president holds onto the possibility of a turnaround in popularity. In fact, the President for the past week has been in one continent of the world where he is decidedly popular: Africa. During a five-day tour of five countries—Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia—Bush was welcomed by ecstatic crowds and told by one African leader, “You have been a good friend of our country, and of Africa.”

There is no mystery in this remarkable accolade. Ever since announcing a dramatically large funding to battle HIV/AIDS in Africa during his State of the Union speech in 2003, President Bush has channeled more financial aid to Africa than any previous U.S. president. The initial anti-AIDS funding was pegged at $15 billion. Already, $18.8 billion has been spent on fighting AIDS in Africa, and the President hopes to double the total aid package aimed against HIV/AIDS to $30 billion. Although cynics have mocked the President for his emphasis on sexual abstinence as a key ingredient to national policies for fighting AIDS, while in Africa the President repeated the mantra that has become largely accepted as the continent’s most effective overall approach: ABC, or “Abstinence, Be Faithful, and use Condoms.” In fact, the U.S. is currently the largest supplier of condoms to Africa of any foreign power.

The suppression of malaria has also been one of the goals of America’s African financial aid. In Tanzania, $5.2 million has been spent providing mothers in that country with “bed-nets,” that is mosquito nets specifically designed to protect vulnerable infants and young children from mosquito bites. There has already been a significant reduction in deaths from malaria as a result of this policy.

The countries President Bush visited were, of course, the beneficiaries of American financial assistance. But they have also been significant success stories as nations: democratic, struggling against corruption, and genuinely seeking to improve the lot of their people. An ingenious American innovation in the African aid arena has been something called the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a system where African nations have much more say in deciding where to invest their aid than the hitherto condescendingly paternal system many donor countries have adopted towards African aid: “we will give you money and you will spend it on what we say.”

At President Bush’s final stop in Africa, in Liberia, a country founded as long ago as 1822 by freed American slaves, Africa’s first elected woman leader, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was grateful that the introduction of 300 American Marines in 2006 ensured the departure from the capital, Monrovia, of one of Africa’s most vicious dictators, Charles Taylor. The current Liberian President begged President Bush not to withdraw the American military presence too soon. Liberia, impoverished to the point of destitution, was ravaged by years of civil war and will take considerable more American economic and military assistance to recover. A possible plum on the top of Liberia’s aid cake is the basing in Liberia of Africom, a new U.S. military command established a year ago and intended to be responsive to various emergencies in Africa. Many African countries don’t want a U.S. military presence in the continent. But Liberia and others differ.

Some Americans may wonder about the intense interest President Bush has shown in Africa’s problems and his obvious willingness to offer American assistance in solving them. After all, this particular president is not known for his great interest in overseas affairs, nor indeed his expertise or experience in them. It took seven years before the Bush administration showed any willingness to take up the perennially insolvable Israeli-Palestinian issue, and even then diplomatic efforts culminated in a one-day peace conference in Annapolis, MD, last November.

But there is a side to President Bush’s personality that is consistently overlooked by his critics. The 2003 HIV/AIDS initiative, which, of course, preceded the Iraq War, grew out of one aspect of Bush’s Christian faith: a sense that people in a position to help others less fortunate ought to do so whenever there is a clear opportunity to do so, even in foreign affairs on a nation-to-nation level. According to various reports, President Bush was deeply moved on visiting the memorial and the museum documenting the 1994 Rwanda genocide atrocities. Could Africom prevent the recurrence of such a tragedy? Possibly. Yet President Bush has decided firmly against deploying U.S. military forces to stop the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. He pointedly denied that China was a strategic competitor on the U.S. in Africa, even though China has propped up unpleasant regimes like that of the Islamic government in Khartoum, a quid pro quo for the export of Sudanese oil to China.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama has impressive credentials for expressing a beneficent American interest in Africa. After all, his own father was born in Africa and on a visit to Kenya in 2006 he was received warmly. But probably the best thing he could do for Africa, if elected, would be to continue to develop the policies of the current president. Now that would be true bipartisanship, which Senator Obama frequently says he wants to restore to Washington. He may yet have his opportunity.  

Dr. Aikman, a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum, was for many years senior correspondent for Time.

1 Responses (comments are closed) • Columns, David Aikman, Leadership, Philanthropy, Mon 25 Feb 2008