America goes too far - Historian Paul Kennedy

Al-Ahram Weekly | Interview | America goes too far: "Can the US administration say, 'we were wrong'?

This administration can never admit to mistakes. A real leader and a mature administration can say, 'we made a mistake. We failed in our policy. We have to rethink it and do it better.' It takes a mature leader to admit mistakes and the American people would actually be happier if George Bush admitted that the administration was over-optimistic about Iraq.

Ironically, George Bush's great hero in history is Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister. Bush is always talking about Churchill but he does not realise that Great Britain, in the course of World War II, suffered many great defeats and was driven out of France in 1940, nearly lost Egypt in 1941, and Malay and Singapore in 1942. Nonetheless, Churchill went to parliament to say, 'we failed. We lost. And we are going to have to change our policy and pick ourselves up and work harder.'

Churchill did not say, like Bush today, 'Oh everything is going okay and we are winning.' Actually, few people in the outside world believe Bush, and a large number of Americans started not to believe him. He is blinkered and not able to say, 'we made a real mistake.'"