Bush Clueless; Founders on Iraq

Read it and weep. We'll get nothing from Bush on "a new way forward" until after the first of next year. With each day that passes, the Bushites will have more reason to say it's too late to implement the temporal ideas of the Iraq Study Group, who, themselves, have offered no recognition that "the goalposts" in Iraq are already way behind us and we're running the ball on a field with no end in sight. There are no fans cheering for a win left on the sidelines of this endless field. The game's over. There are no rules left. Just running - running aimlessly. Even the most diehard fans mumble amongst one another with confusion.

The only "moving forward" left to do is to turn around and get in some kind of game again. Most Americans believe it's time to set the sights on getting the players back home and wait for a better game - one with a clear goal - one that they believe in - one they can actually win.

"Our objective is to help the Iraqi government deal with the extremists and the killers, and support the vast majority of Iraqis who are reasonable, who want peace," Bush said after an Oval Office meeting Tuesday with Tariq al-Hashemi. [WaPo]

If President Bush cannot even support the vast majority of Americans who are reasonable, who want peace - he's brushed them off, calling them "focus groups" in the past - - how can our commander in chief square that by saying he supports the vast majority of Iraqis who are reasonable, who want peace? Why is he getting us further embroiled in the civil war in Iraq? Why is his administration showing signs of sticking with "the course" in Cheney/neocon disguise by "tilting" toward Shi'ites? So much for coaxing the Sunnis into the political process!
[see Laura Rozen and Michael Stickings]



Professor Juan Cole had this to say yesterday pleading for an acceptance of reality and an end to denial in Iraq:

"We're taking sides..without necessarily meaning to....but we're taking sides in a civil war. [Our troops] are killing Sunni Arabs in Baquaba on behalf of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq which dominates the political apparatus of that place. Is that really what we want to be doing? Do we want to kill Sunni Arabs for the Supreme Council for Islamic Revoltion in Iraq - the Shi'ite organization that was founded at the instance of Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran?

Go to this CSPAN video - Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) on Humanitarian Situation in Iraq.

Do we really want to become 'Murder, Incorporated' in Iraq's civil war? Is that where all of this has taken us?

See Laura Rozen's "whiffs" and indications toward a decided intent toward the 'Salvadorization' of Iraq.

The Left Coaster shows how it's getting so bad that Bush and Cheney are shooting for different ways to get to God-knows-what-outcome in the region:

[Cheney] is the one arguing for the “80 Percent Solution”, whereby we side with the Shiites against the Sunnis, and Cheney is against anything that would shorten our time in the country. Yet while Cheney is afraid of forcing al-Maliki’s hand directly, the Bush Administration is working around al-Maliki anyway by building a coalition amongst the Kurds, the Sunnis, and the Iranian-backed SCIRI to marginalize him and Muqtada al-Sadr. As [this NYT] story indicates, any move by the SCIRI and al-Maliki to isolate al-Sadr and reduce his political imprint threatens an open rejection from Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani that would split the Shiites and turn thousands into the streets against both the government and the Sunnis, which could be the endgame Shooter is really looking for.

A comment made today at Informed Comment reveals a new line in a Bush statement from yesterday:

"This is really the calling of our time, that is, to defeat these extremists and radicals."

The commenter says:

Not "terrorists," only "extremists and radicals"! What's going on here? Have all or some of the former global terrorists been demoted, or are "extremists and radicals" a different group altogether -- even possibly the Mahdí Army specifically?

Marine General Peter Pace, a fine and capable leader, has been tap dancing for Bush for a long time now. Too long. He's a good soldier. Removing him is not going to produce a better man for the job of chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I hope Bush and incoming Sec'y of Defense Robert Gates don't think we're so stupid that we'd believe that General Pace is to blame for this mess. Maybe they just want a better tap dancer.