Friday, December 29, 2006

"You can always count on Americans to do the right thing but only after
they've exhausted every other possibility." --Winston Churchill(1874-1965),
former Prime Minister of England Sometimes, when a snake tries to swallow a
porcupine, it gets stuck in its throat and the predator has no choice but to
spit it out. The neoconservative Bush-Cheney administration, under the
pro-Israel Lobby's influence, thought that Iraq would be an easy meal, to be
savored while doing an easycakewalk, in the words of neocon Ken Adelman: "I
believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a
cakewalk." Now, the Bush-Cheney administration will spend the next two years
it has left attempting to extricate itself from the morass they have brought
upon Iraq and upon the United States. According to former U.N. General
SecretaryKofi Annan, the U.S. is 'trapped in Iraq', and faces a no-win
situation. This is reminiscent of what former Secretary of State Colin Powel
is reputed to have said to George W. Bush before the military invasion of
Iraq: "If you break it; you own it!" How long and after how many more deaths
will this Iraq quagmire last? The geopolitical consequences of having a
country like the United States trapped in Iraq are enormous.
The Iraq conflict is turning into another Vietnam war-like fiasco. Already,
the Iraq war costs more in nominal terms than the Vietnam war and 58 percent
of Americansnow believe that George W. Bush led them into a new Vietnam-like
mess. Even though the 10-wise-person Baker-Hamilton Commission has
unanimously recommended that the U.S. terminate its open-ended presence in
Iraq and begin its disengagement and "redeployment" from the country, and
even though fewer than 30 percent of Americans approve Bush's policies in
Iraq, you can bet the house that George W. Bush will not follow the
recommendation of his father's advisors. Instead of beginning an orderly
troop withdrawal in 2007, as recommended by the Baker-Hamilton Commission,
G. W. Bush would rather gamble and raise the ante, and will risk turning
Iraq into an even bigger mess than it is today. It's like Bush's SUV has no
reverse gear! In a last attempt to salvage a losing and misguided
enterprise, and deep in his continuous state of denial, Bush will throw good
money after bad and will send thousands of additional American troops to
"secure Baghdad" and give the impression of some stability in Iraq. In
reality, Bush's "new approach" for Iraq may well have the consequence of
enlarging the conflict, possibly bringing Iran, Syria, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia into the inferno. In other words, the neocon inspired Bush-Cheney
team will do exactly the reverse of what the Baker-Hamilton Commission has
recommended. No wonder former president George H.W. Bush is crying aloud in
public. The Bush-Cheney administration invaded a foreign country illegally
and now thinks that its presence there has become indispensable. That takes
some gall. Trying to save face with "a last big push" to give the impression
of "salvaging" the situation is not a real policy for solving the Iraq mess.
This will only perpetuate the on-going civil war in that country and pile up
more deaths on the already high mountain of deaths. It is a cop-out, but
sadly in line with what one would expect from a dysfunctional
administration.