“So after he had washed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.”
John 13:12-14
Jesus had the right idea here. Leadership is all about service. It’s putting the good of others ahead of your own ambitions. It is an act of humility rather than an act of arrogance or ego.
Socrates reasoned that the best leaders were those reluctant to take power.
I think these days we would just settle for a leader that was less hypocritical.
Here’s an excerpt from a speech President Bush gave on Tuesday on Iraq and specifically the political progress being made by Prime Minister Maliki’s government.
“The fundamental question is: Will the government respond to the demands of the people? If the government doesn’t respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government.” This quote elicited a strong response from Mr. Maliki and the President quickly backed away from this particular argument and embarked on a new bit of revisionist history. I’ll get to that in a later post.
In the meantime, you probably know where I’m going with this, but let me keep you in suspense a moment longer.
When Mr. Bush was asked if he was calling for a change of leadership in Iraq, he responded, “That’s up to the Iraqis to make that decision, not American politicians.”
Here are some interesting facts in the context of those statements.
A recent Harris poll says that 42% of the American people feel that the US should pull its troops out of Iraq now. Another 21% feel that the troops should stay ONLY if the Iraqi people want them to stay. The remaining 23% feel that the troops should stay regardless of what the Iraqi people want.
The most recent poll of Iraqi people that I could find is about eight months old. In it 70% of the Iraqi’s polled want the US to leave. Also telling are the 76% who believe that the US would refuse any request by the Iraqi government to leave and the 80% who believe that the US plans to establish permanent military bases in Iraq.
So the fundamental question is: Will the (US) government respond to the demands of the (US) people?
Also, if it isn’t American politicians who are currently imposing an unwelcome military presence on the Iraqi people and as a result making decisions for them, then who is?
Fortunately, Mr. Bush has an answer for us that is hopefully prophetic.
“If the government doesn’t respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government.”