Credit Where Credit is Due

Listing the best presidents based on Africa policy is a game not destined to take too long. American policy toward Africa has been riddled with disinterest, selfish interest, and confused interest. Realpolitik failed inasmuch as Africa was never perceived as being in our vital interest. And where the continent played in to our vital interest, such as during the Cold War, we did far more harm to the continent and its people than help. The Cold War turned African nations that worked with us into client states, which worked to the benefit of despots but rarely to the people they terrorized.

Monroe created the conditions that would allow for the establishment of Liberia, a mixed bag at best. FDR began American involvement in the European theater of World War II in North Africa, which had little to do with Africa itself. JFK sent Peace Corps workers across the continent to try to do good works but helped create conditions for our Cold War engagement there as well. Bill Clinton gained a reputation as an Africa-friendly president, which rhetorically and even in his heart he was. So he earns a place on the all-time top-four list even with the atrocity that was America's utter fecklessness with regard to Rwanda. And that's about it for the "good list."

With one notable exception. And it is an exception that comes with caveats -- there has never been a President that has even been tolerable with regard to Africa. We have an atrocious record there. Even the best administrations have long lists of failures in comparison with short lists of successes. That includes the one exception. And that exception is George W. Bush.

As with every one of his predecessors, Bush has had an Africa policy that on balance has been pretty modest. In some cases simpy bad. (The Sudan is becoming Bush's Rwanda.) But that said, Bush earns the distinction, dubious as it may be, of being the best friend to Africa of any president in American history. Today's Boston Globe has a short feature on the good news on AIDS in Africa, news that is good in large part because of American investment in programs to counter the dread scourge and that provides reason to praise Bush gently.

Critics look for reasons to hammer away at this administration's policies, and there is room for complaint. But Bush has done a lot more than Clinton. A lot more than his father. And a hell of a lot more than Reagan, who danced with the devil in sustaining apartheid South Africa. On the whole, the president's record in Africa still leaves a great deal to be desired, and it is true that like its predecessors, the administration has been better with rhetoric than with delivery. But if assessments, however modest and tentative, are to be made from an African perspective, and not from the framework of American politics, where it is true that concern with Africa almost universally tends to come from the left side of the political spectrum and thus would be inclined to look unfavorably upon Bush, the reality remains that Bush deserves some credit, especially when compared with every man who preceded him in that office. We can and must do more. America's record in Africa is shameful (and leadership on the issue has always come from the halls of Congress when it has come at all). But fair is fair. Bush may only deserve a little bit of credit, but a fair assessment will at least grant him that little bit.