US: Jeb Bush working hard to shake off Dubya

JEB Bush heads to Europe next week to put a checkmark in a final box before making his 2016 Republican presidential campaign official: an overseas visit to catch up with a few of America’s friends.

Jeb Bush: Presidency hopeful. Picture: NYT

All of his hosts, Germany, Poland and Estonia, are stalwart US allies, and they’re calmer destinations than the cauldron of the Middle East. But the last name Bush still stirs anger in parts of Europe – a legacy of former President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

For this Bush, the trick with his first trip overseas as a White House hopeful is to avoid spending too much time making the same case to European leaders he’s had to make at home to American voters – that he’s not his brother.

“If he tries to make this trip about see-how-I’m-not-like-George W. Bush, if that’s the story line of the trip, it will not have been a success,” said Peter Feaver, former head of strategic operations at the National Security Agency and now a professor at Duke University.

The trip comes at a key time for Bush. He will return a day before kicking off his campaign with an event in Miami, fresh from a journey he hopes will show he’s ready to step onto the world stage.

“A Republican doing a list­ening tour of American allies, that makes sense,” said William Inboden, who served as senior director for strategic planning with the National Security Council under George W. Bush.

“But you’re also wanting to demonstrate the ability to be proficient in personal diplomacy, ” he added.

Bush’s six-day trip begins with a speech in Berlin on Tuesday to the economic council of the Christian Democratic Union, the conservative party led by Chancellor Angela Merkel.

A mix of public and private events there and in Poland and Estonia follow.

The early days of the Rep­ublican campaign suggest much of the party’s presidential primary debate will focus on foreign policy, given the ongoing unrest in Iraq, civil war in Syria and a preliminary agreement – deeply unpopular among Republicans – between Iran and the US and five allies aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear programme.

Bush’s early discussions about foreign policy have often drifted into his brother’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003, which some critics cite as the cause of regional unrest that helped lead to the rise of the Islamic State.

Jeb Bush’s effort to avoid publicly criticising his brother led him into a twisted ser­ies of answers about whether he would have made the same invasion decision, making for his roughest political week since he expressed an interest last December in running for the White House.

While he still plans to talk about the threat posed by the Islamic State during his trip, he’ll do so in a place where the discussion can be about how the extremist group is one of several shared threats faced by America and its Western allies.

Aides said that Bush aims to underscore the early themes of his approach to global affairs during his visit, namely that the United States ought to reinforce its relationships with its allies and demonstrate solidarity with the democratic success stories in Eastern Europe.

Expect a lot of talk about Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin.