Captain America

For a start, the obsession with outsourcing is exasperating. Certainly, it is not the blockbuster issue of the November 2 election.

Neither would lazy analysis like 8220;Oh Bush and Kerry are the same8221; do. As anybody who watched the three, admittedly lacklustre, presidential debates would attest, the two are not fungible. George W. Bush and John F. Kerry represent very different positions and ideas of America.

Kerry has willy-nilly become the adopted son of a left-leaning Democrat fringe that has spent a quarter century in the desert 8212; since Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election and began the renewal of America.

This group is seeking to exploit the emotionally-fraught circumstances of a wartime nation to hijack a revolution 8212; one that reinforced a sense of national identity after the Vietnam-Watergate mess, won America the Cold War, set the pace for the economic boom of the 8217;90s.

In the dying years of the past century, this fringe groped for new, postmodern demons. It found one in the World Trade Organisation, another in genetically-modified foods. Now it has finally hit upon a flesh-and-blood villain 8212; George W. Bush.

The trendy left is determined to win Kerry the White House 8212; not because he is good, but because Bush is bad, very bad. If one were to go back to the debates, Kerry seemed to offer no plan, only an anti-plan. He defines himself as the negation of Bush.

Ironically, this doesn8217;t seem to worry Kerry8217;s Indian adherents. There is a type of Indian who is irredeemably America-sceptic, believes the world is a CIA conspiracy and particularly loathes Republican administrations.

To such Indians, Bush is a godsend, Kerry the default option. It is a quizzical sense of politics, apparent in newspapers, social chatter and manifest 8212; in Delhi at least 8212; in the puerile hand-clapping at screenings of Fahrenheit 9/11.

Michael Moore8217;s film taps into a knee-jerk dislike of Bush among India8217;s formidable array of self-appointed intellectuals. It is the mother of all conspiracy theories, the sort some Indians feed on.

The film has two themes. First, Bush 8220;stole8221; the presidency by disenfranchising Florida8217;s black voters. Every single US Congressman Moore shows protesting against Bush8217;s 2000 election is African-American.

The US army, the film then says, is recruiting unemployed blacks in the rust belt of America. Therefore Bush is sending into war the very people he betrayed. The film ends with the trite observation that governments, in effect, wage war on their people to preserve social hierarchies!

From tinpot philosopher, Moore turns cockeyed private eye. His second conclusion is Bush and his father are traitors, Saudi plants in the United States establishment. The proof? Bush once ran an oil company that was bought into by an American who was managing investments for sections of the bin Laden family.

As such, Moore decides, Bush has not gone after Osama bin Laden or Saudi Arabia. He has diverted attention by invading Iraq.

Why is this infantile film important at all? It is so because when Kerry accuses Bush of allowing bin Laden to get away, of 8220;outsourcing8221; his extermination to 8220;Afghan warlords8221;, he takes his cue from Moore. It8217;s almost like Mahesh Bhatt writing the Congress8217; election manifesto.

Now how bad has Bush really been? In its most basic form, foreign policy is the management of external parameters to promote domestic security and well-being.

If this be the judge, Bush has been successful in ensuring zero Al Qaeda attacks on American soil since 9/11. So is the War on Terror being lost or won?

If one followed US foreign policy debates in the aftermath of 9/11, it was clear that there was a broader strategy. Saudi Arabia was seen as a long-term problem. A counter-balance was needed in the Arab world, both to neutralise Saudi oil 8212; which could, theoretically, be turned on or off to blackmail the global economy 8212; and as a political model.

Iraq was the correct candidate. Where Bush went wrong was in not mustering courage to sell his war as an effort to reshape the Middle East, but instead over-hyping a small-time thug like Saddam Hussein into Lucifer with WMD.

Yet, all the conflict in 8220;occupied8221; Iraq is internal. Despite the apprehensions and wishes of Bush-phobes, it has not become an export-house for jihad; and may never.

There8217;re some questions for Indians too. Over the past three years, has Bush made Pakistan less of a problem or more? Is Bush8217;s resolve to defang jihad, in the Arab world, in Bangladesh, in East Asia, good for India or bad? Is the Bush worldview really antithetical to Indian interests? Does it better suit India to have to a president who will treat Islamist terror as just another 8220;nuisance8221; Kerry8217;s words?

Granted, the US budgetary deficit has fiscal conservatives aghast. True, Bush8217;s Homeland Security apparatus runs against the grain of small government. Yet those are not key to the man8217;s presidency.

In the end, forget his grammatical errors, ignore those pointless comparisons with Clinton, laugh away the thought that his rival is not Gore but only a ketchup affiliate. Just accept that Bush, whatever his faults, is an agent of history.

Ignore that at your peril.