This week, the 2016 campaign takes us back to Iraq as the media grapples with the emerging foreign policy philosophy and advisory team of Jeb Bush. The potential presidential candidate is laden with the burden of memory — specifically, the memory of his brother’s misadventures in Iraq. The early indication is that Jeb reckons he may as well turn into the skid. As the Washington Post’s Philip Bump explains, “If Bush’s goal is to present himself as his ‘own man,’ that list of advisers undermines the point somewhat: 19 of the 21 people on it worked in the administrations of his father or brother.”
As Bump notes, “the foreign policy team of any Republican president would probably draw heavily from the experience of the past three Republican administrations.” This is, sadly, the drawback of a political culture that’s insular in just about every way — it’s hard to simply excommunicate the incompetents. For the same reason, most Democratic administrations will inevitably be advised by the dim goobers that brought you the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
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At any rate, I think the answer to the question, “Can Jeb Bush escape his brother’s legacy in Iraq?” is, “Sure, he easily can if he wanted to, simply by not consorting with the people who brought about that legacy. But Jeb clearly doesn’t want to, so he won’t.” This stuff isn’t hard.
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