Bush: Still In A Dangerous Fog

Anyone want a peace sticker?

How about this one, specifically for Iraq?

Nice thought, but it's a bit late for that second one. Frankly, I don't see where peace was ever on the Bush/Cheney drawing board.

The New York Times published an editorial, finally, that pulls no punches.

The Real Disaster states what is likely the truth: there is no disaster to be avoided in Iraq by withdrawing because Iraq is already a disaster.

It's Bush's disaster (and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's and Rice's and Wolfowitz's, et all as well, but since the President sold the country on it, it is primarily his failure) and he is not going to make it better by menacing Syria and Iran.

I hope we - and Congress - have learned that Bush has no concept of the Pandora's Box he unleashes when going with his "judgment."

Case in point: having failed in Iraq, please tell me how sending U.S. troops over the borders of Iran and Syria in search of "terrorists" - essentially invading Iran and Syria - is going to lead to anything but confrontations with both those countries and a dangerous escalation of this war?

Just as the U.S. invaded Cambodia as an excuse to protect servicemen in Vietnam, now Bush is going to justify invading Iran and Syria as part of the war in Iraq.

Do you ever wonder if Bush isn't one of those "born agains" who are hoping for the 'second coming' and actively trying to create doomsday? That might explain his fiasco of a foreign policy.

And, yes, accuse me of hyperbole, but isn't invading when you're losing what Hitler did? These kinds of doomed policies are usually the brainchildren of megalomaniacs and fascists.

For those who have not seen The Fog of War, the film interview of Robert McNamara who served as Secretary of Defense under JFK and LBJ, rent it. A must see, it's an education in which he shares the lessons he learned.

Meanwhile, here's another eye opener. David Brooks, who usually writes editorials (at least the ones I've read) criticizing Democrats, defending Bush and supporting the War In Iraq has now reached that place where so many of us have been for so long.

He is perplexed by Bush. He says Bush's new plan makes no sense and the President is being dishonest and unclear.

For him to come out with this analysis of Bush's "plan" is telling.

The truth is, Bush is playing "Calvinball." He's always made it up as he went, while spinning and lying about it, as has Cheney, as did Rumsfeld. Too bad people die as a result.

Republican Senator Chuck Hagel appeared on Charlie Rose tonight and said Bush has "squandered" another opportunity. (What else is new?) He had the opportunity to start over with the recommendations from the bi-partisan committee, unite the nation and bring this thing to an end.

But Bush doesn't want to bring it to an end. He's still itching to attack Iran and Syria. He's like General Curtis LeMay. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, LeMay wanted to attack Cuba even if it meant nuclear warheads would be fired at the U.S. and some of our cities destroyed.

Bush, with his plans to invade Syria and Iran even as our army is being destroyed in Iraq seems to have the same mentality.

But who really expected such a black and white thinker like Bush - who is insulated and supremely stubborn - to do anything different?

Not I. How about you?

Here are excerpts from David Brook's Times Select column:

January 11, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

The Fog Over Iraq
By DAVID BROOKS

"The Democrats have been fecund with criticisms of the war, but when it comes to alternative proposals, a common approach is social Darwinism on stilts: We failed them, now they’re on their own."

[Note: I find it incongruous that Brooks is criticizing social Darwinism. I thought one had to subscribe to that ideology to even be a Republican.]

"So we are stuck with the Bush proposal as the only serious plan on offer. The question is, what exactly did President Bush propose last night? The policy rollout has been befogged by so much spin and misdirection it’s nearly impossible to figure out what the president is proposing.

Nonetheless, here’s my reconstruction of how this policy evolved:

On Nov. 30, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki presented Bush with a new security plan for Baghdad. It called for U.S. troops to move out of Baghdad to the periphery, where they would chase down Sunni terrorists. Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish troops, meanwhile, would flood into the city to establish order, at least as they define it.

Maliki essentially wanted the American troops protecting his flank but out of his hair. He didn’t want U.S. soldiers embedded with his own. He didn’t want American generals hovering over his shoulder. His government didn’t want any restraints on Shiite might.

Over the next weeks, Bush rejected the plan and opted for the opposite approach. Instead of handing counterinsurgency over to the Iraqis/Shiites, he decided to throw roughly 20,000 U.S. troops — everything he had available — into Baghdad. He and his advisers negotiated new rules of engagement to make it easier to go after Shiites as well as Sunnis. He selected two aggressive counterinsurgency commanders, David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno, to lead the effort. Odierno recently told John Burns of The Times that American forces would remain in cleared areas of Baghdad “24/7,” suggesting a heavy U.S. presence.

Then came the job of selling the plan. The administration could not go before the world and say that the president had decided to overrule the sovereign nation of Iraq. Officials could not tell wavering Republicans that the president was proposing a heavy, U.S.-led approach.

Thus, administration officials are saying that they have adopted the Maliki plan, just with a few minor tweaks. In briefings and in the president’s speech, officials claimed that this was an Iraqi-designed plan, that Iraqi troops would take on all the primary roles in clearing and holding neighborhoods, that Iraqis in mixed neighborhoods would scarcely see any additional Americans.

All of this is designed to soothe the wounded pride of the Maliki government, and to make the U.S. offensive seem less arduous at home. It’s the opposite of the truth.

Yesterday, administration officials were praising Maliki lavishly. He wants the same things we want, they claimed. He has resolved to lead a nonsectarian government. He is reworking his governing coalitions and marginalizing the extremists. “We’ve seen the nascent rise of a moderate political bloc,” one senior administration official said yesterday.

But the selling of the plan illustrates that this is not the whole story. The Iraqi government wants a unified non-sectarian solution in high-minded statements and in some distant, ideal world. But in the short term, and in the deepest reptilian folds of their brains, the Shiites are maneuvering amid the sectarian bloodbath all around.

This is not a function of the character of Maliki or this or that official. It’s a function of the core dynamic now afflicting Iraqi society.

The enemy in Iraq is not some discrete group of killers. It’s the maelstrom of violence and hatred that infects every institution, including the government and the military. Instead of facing up to this core reality, the Bush administration has papered it over with salesmanship and spin.