“My sincere view Is that the commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions — or bury the results.”  Lt. General Gregory Newbold, ret.; director of operations, Joint Chiefs of Staff 2000 to 2002.

The White House insists Mr. Bush isn’t “frustrated” over slow progress in Iraq and the intractable difficulties of the broader Middle East.  Maybe a better word would be “confused”?   Or “flustered”?   Or “befuddled”?  Or  simply “dumbfounded”?   Why, he must be asking, if God is on my side and I’ve been placed in this office at this moment of history for a reason, is my great legacy, the wondrous remaking of the region prophesied by Uncle Dick and my faithful advisers failing to emerge?   No wonder poor Mr. Bush is confused.   It wasn’t supposed to be this way.    Mr. Bush’s historic remaking of the Middle East is clearly not going according to plan.

Imagine his bewilderment at what has happened in Lebanon.  Instead of Hezbollah crushed by Israel’s military....supported, egged on, and supplied with weaponry by the White House....the Israelis were fought to an apparent standstill (with as many rockets falling on Israel on the last day of fighting as ever).    France, that bete noir of the neo-cons, emerged as the deal-maker in the international arena and forced the U.S. to back down on its demands.  Hezbollah gained stature and power in the arab world by standing up to the powerful Israeli military, and now benefits even more by stepping in to help rebuild what the Israelis destroyed.   Finally, despite Mr. Bush’s rhetoric and veiled threats, Iran has become even more influential in the region.   Indeed, the Bush administration’s feeble rhetoric only made more obvious its lack of leverage and credibility.

Mr. Bush is trying to put the best possible face on it, suggesting it just takes time for people to see that Hezbollah hasn’t successfully defied Israeli military power, gaining respect and power in the process.   He says people should one day realize the recent fight was in fact a loss for the Islamic militant group.   He sounds awfully confused though.   Israel not only failed on its claim that air power alone would crush Hezbollah, it failed to take that organization down with its tepid ground war, and in the end accepted a cease-fire that does nothing to alter the situation.  Hezbollah remains a significant player, it’s forces remain relatively intact and uncowed, and there is no way to prevent Iran rearming them.

Meanwhile, the Lebanese announce that disarming Hezbollah will not be part of the arrangement, the French (and others) reject an aggressive international force to occupy southern Lebanon and attempt what the Israelis themselves failed to do, and Hezbollah has stepped into the forefront of rebuilding Lebanon, providing money, support and assistance to those who lost homes and businesses in the Israeli attacks.  Dad tried to tell young George there’d be days like this.   Young George, however, thought he knew better than all those who have tried to warn him.

Then there’s Iraq.   Reportedly perplexed about the continuing disaster in Baghdad, the failure of the new Iraqi regime to gain the support and loyalty of the populace, and the lack of support for his policies both abroad and at home, all Mr. Bush can do is wring his hands and wonder why Iraqis just can’t “get more on board to bring success.”     That may not be “frustration,” but it sure doesn’t sound like confidence or satisfaction with a job well done.   The White House can put whatever spin on it they like, but it still sounds like Mr. Bush is lost and can’t figure out why.

As Iraq suffers its worst levels of killing and sectarian violence ever, Mr Bush tinkers with the margins of his failed strategy.   Shifting troops from Anbar province to Baghdad only leaves the former region more vulnerable to the al Qaeda influenced Sunni insurgency that has bedeviled the Bush administration for more than three years now and continues to grow.   Yet Mr. Bush doesn’t dare increase troop levels prior to the November elections here at home.   It is clear that any reduction in US troop strength in Iraq is not going to happen, so all he can do at this point is shuffle the already over-extended force around to put out fires and pray that the place doesn’t get even worse before the election.    

Even the recent effort to demonstrate that Mr. Bush was listening to a wider circle of advisers and experts on Iraq and the Middle East rings hollow.   It is largely a response to criticism that the president was “in a bubble,” not a serious effort to broaden input into the administration.  It has all the earmarks of a planned public relations campaign, complete with photo-ops and press releases.  

Stay and Pray is and remains the strategy.   The administration shows no sign of changing its attitude or approach, and Mr. Bush shows no intention of listening to anyone outside his small circle of long-time cronies.   Rather than acknowledge its plans have gone badly awry, the administration continues to spout the same tired platitudes and cliches, offer the same “stab-in-the-back” claims, and relyon the same fear-mongering as usual....all the while wringing their hands and wondering why the world just won’t cooperate.   Mr. Bush is coming face to face with the reality of his foreign policy......as opposed to the illusion and wishful thinking that has characterized his presidency.   Yet even now he simply cannot accept that his grand plans are in shambles, that the Middle East today is a far more dangerous, unstable, and frightening place than it was six years ago when he took office, and that rather than being on the run, his enemies thrive and laugh in his face.   A policy and strategy built on illusion, slogans, sleight-of-hand, and public relations manipulation cannot succeed, the chickens are coming home to roost.

No wonder poor Mr. Bush is confused.   It wasn’t supposed to be this way.  His buddies Rummy, Uncle Dick, and Condi assured him he would have the best legacy any president could ever want.....and God was on his side as well.....so how could it all have gone so wrong?   He may not be “frustrated” about all that, but he surely must be frustrated to see his chance for a great historical legacy slipping quickly away.   Indeed, history is not likely to treat his legacy in the Middle East kindly at all.

dtf

“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”  First Epistle General of Peter, iii, 4


So much for the notion that as long as we’re fighting “terrorists” in Iraq we won’t have to fight them at home.   Anyone foolish enough to have believed that little bit of Bush administration bluster, which was inherently illogical anyway, should be taking stock of the implications of today’s revelations.

That an apparent plot was foiled is, of course, good news.   But it has nothing whatsoever to do with our endless war in Iraq.   If the alleged plot failed, it was because of good, old-fashioned intelligence and detective work in the United Kingdom.   In short, the way to protect ourselves here at home is not by pursuing an increasingly failed strategy in Iraq, it is by improving upon our ability to detect and stop terrorists who are already hard at work in the very countries they wish to attack.   The people who planned to blow up airliners over the Atlantic weren’t in Iraq, and they weren’t fighting us in Iraq.   They were in England, and perhaps already in the U.S. as well.

As the details emerge, in fact, it turns out that the people arrested are homegrown terrorists, as was the case with those who carried out the Madrid bombings and the London subway bombings.   They had nothing to do with Iraq, except perhaps having been motivated to become human missiles by Mr. Bush’s ill-conceived adventure in promoting democracy there.   Indeed, the only connection between our war in Iraq and al Qaeda is that that war now provides a recruiting poster and training ground for a new generation of Sulafi Jihadi terrorists.   Iraq was never the source of Sulafi Jihadism.  And al Qaeda’s connection to the on-going debacle in Iraq is one of opportunism created by Mr. Bush’s actions, not the reason for them.

The administration has changed their rationale for the Iraq war as many times as a basketball changes hands during a game.  When weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize, they shifted to overthrowing a terrible dictator.   Yes, Saddam Hussein was a tyrant who deserved to be removed, but then there are a dozen other such tyrants around the world, why aren’t we as concerned about removing them as well.   And then there was Mr. Cheney, who never met an intelligence assessment he couldn’t ignore, arguing that we had to invade Iraq because of that country’s connection to 9/11.   Of course, there has never been any actual evidence to demonstrate such a connection, but no matter to the Vice President, who knows that a good fable repeated often will usually be accepted as truth by the red state masses.   

More recently, as the violence in Iraq has become sectarian in nature, the administration trumpets the mission to bring about a new Middle East marked by freedom and democracy......never mind that they’ve rejected the results of one democratic election and now stand aside while the only other democratic government in the region is blasted into irrelevancy by the Israelis.   

But when all other arguments fail to stand up to logic or careful examination, the die-hard supporters of the administration’s “Stay and Pray” strategy roll out the “as long as we fight them there, we won’t have to fight them here at home” argument, pointing to the fact that there has not been another major terrorist attack in the U.S. since 9/11.   These latest events, however, should make it clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence that this is a specious argument, with no merit whatsoever.   It isn’t the sacrifice of American service personnel (and hundreds of Iraqis) every day in Iraq that will protect us from al Qaeda’s terrorism, it is good old-fashioned intelligence and police-work that will do so.

dtf

“I don’t understand how poor people think.”  George W. Bush, cited in NY Times, 26 August 2003


No doubt the possible demise or incapacitation of Fidel Castro has both the Miami Cuban community and Mr. Bush’s increasingly beleaguered band of favored neo-con foreign policy advisers drooling in anticipation.   Suddenly, they can all see the success they have lusted after for decades almost within reach......the collapse of Fidel Castro’s frustratingly impudent communist regime which lies just off our pristine American shores.

The administration has publically acknowledged that they have “a plan” ready to destabilize whatever successor government there is to Fidel’s long-time rule, and the Miami exiles are preparing to finally take their place as rightful rulers of a ‘free” Cuba.....reaping the financial and business benefits that would be sure to follow.   But it is doubtful that any plan this administration has will involve either subtlety or imagination, and given their noted ineptitude when it comes to follow-up, it is highly probably that they have not really thought much about the consequences that would inevitably come in the wake of a collapse of the regime in Cuba, not the least of which would be the unleashing of a refugee flow of unprecedented proportions into southern Florida.   

Remove the restraints placed upon the people of that poverty ridden island, open the doors to relatively free movement between the United States and Cuba....a right which would be almost impossible to deny to the Miami Cubans eager to take advantage of the biggest economic opportunity in their lifetime.....and we will no doubt suddenly see an armada of fishing craft, home-made boats, rigged up rafts and Rube Goldberg floating contraptions come toward our shores.    

One wonders exactly how the Bush administration will cope with this influx of refugees desperate to partake in the free-market candy store that America represents.  Indeed, one wonders whether they’ve even thought about it.    To offer a similar situation elsewhere in the world, the Chinese have made it quite clear that the possibility of a regime meltdown in North Korea leaves them extremely nervous, for precisely the same reason.   Remove the restraints of a rigid, dictatorial regime, and people will run for the exits as fast as they can.   This is especially true in countries like North Korea or Cuba where the economic prospects for the average person are and will remain bleak for decades to come.   The Bush administration’s idyllic notion of a people sticking around to work hard and build a free market economy so that their children’s children will have all the wonderful stuff we Americans have is foolishness at its worst.   Why slave away for some reward one will never see when a short 90 miles away there are opportunities galore?

So, when the Bush administration seeks to redeem itself in foreign policy by trumpeting success in the “ouster” of Fidel Castro (ignoring and/or diverting attention from the fact that they simply happened to be in office when time and age finally caught up with Mr. Castro), will they once again discover that in their rush to change the world all they’ve done is open up yet another can of worms?    Will we see the Coast Guard and American Navy blockading the Florida Straits in a desperate and vain attempt to prevent tens of thousands of poor Cubans from landing in the backyard of the president’s brother, himself a potential presidential candidate?    And, in the midst of an already divisive debate about immigration and illegal immigrants, how will the White House manage those thousands of Cubans pouring into the U.S. by any means possible from making themselves at home here?    Will they simply allow even more illegals to stay, or will they try to stem the flow, round them up, and ship them back while noting that the Cuba they fled is now a ‘free” country?

dtf