Bush's options limited in worsening Mideast crisis (love the headline)

[uppityperson]

About time this is printed up BIG and published all over!
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-07-14T210604Z_01_N14176954_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-BUSH-OPTIONS.xml

The Bush administration, having stayed mostly on the sidelines during the latest Middle East crisis, now faces the threat of a broader regional conflict with few options for defusing it.

Distracted by the war in Iraq and preoccupied with Iran and North Korea, the U.S. government kept its distance as Israeli forces struck the Gaza Strip in recent weeks after Palestinian Hamas militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier. But with fighting expanding to the Israel-Lebanon front and threatening to spread further, some Middle East experts say Washington's hands-off policy has only made matters worse.

"Disengagement has contributed to a deterioration of the situation and has put the United States in a position where it doesn't have the same kind of leverage it used to," said Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy under former President Bill Clinton.

Friends and critics alike have started calling on President George W. Bush, in Russia for a Group of Eight summit, to urgently revive Washington's role as regional peace-broker. Some are urging him to name a personal envoy like Colin Powell, his former secretary of state. They fear that otherwise the violence could spiral out of control, drawing in Syria and Iran. Israel and the United States accuse the two of complicity in this week's raid by Lebanese Hizbollah fighters who captured two Israeli soldiers...(more@link)

[uppityperson]

1. Bloody hell, here is a telling thing from the article. Damnation.

As a result, Alterman said, Washington would quietly acquiesce if Israel carried out an air raid on Syria to send a message that it will be held accountable. Such an attack would risk testing Iran's pledge to come to Syria's defense.

[saltpoint]

2. Maybe he'll luck out and reporters will ask him about that pig...

"Bush's limitations worsen Middle East prospects"

"Bush's incompetence brings Middle East solution into question"

"Hapless U.S. pseudo-cowboy thrashing around for answers"

"Witless yahoo Bush on a week-long drunk"

etc.

[enigmacat]

14. "Maybe he'll luck out and reporters will ask him about that pig..." LOL

[Straight Shooter]

3. We've got a frat boy in charge of what is clearly a man's job. n/t

[uppityperson]

4. later in article is call for Colin Powell or James Baker

to get their butts over there and help.

[Robbien]

5. Bush pulled the Palestinian funding, the Israeli funding is still flowing

Pulling the Israeli funding is an option not being mentioned at all the the media.

[rodeodance]

10. and now Israel wants some jet fuel from the US.

[uppityperson]

16. to keep the peace though, just to keep the peace

:arcasm: And before anyone blasts me for supporting ANYONE in this blasted war, they all have blood on their hands.

(Except for those who don't, but they are not the ones doing this but just getting killed in the meantime.)

[CuteNFuzzy]

6. War Pigs

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses

Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction

In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning

Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah ...

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war

Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor!

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgement day comes, yeah!

Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning

[midnight armadillo]

21. even better, try this one

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

[SoCalDem]

7. Bush is the ULTIMATE sideliner..never even ASKS the coach to put him in

He likes being out of the loop, so he can never be held responsible for anything.,.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

8. The headline is bullshit.

"Chimp's Ineptitude Worsens Middle East Crisis!" is more fitting.

"Options limited" doesn't illuminate Chimp's missteps and makes it sound like his hands are tied due to no fault of his own.

"Chimp Directly And Wholly Responsible For Current ME Crisis!" works best of all.

[cliss]

15. I agree.

In terms of US leadership, there is no leadership. Washington has a hologram president. If you turn it to one side, you will see it's all an illusion.

In some ways, having Bush there makes things worse. He instigates a lot of this stuff.

The world is on its own.

[Lisa]

22. "Here's Another Fine Mess He's Gotten Us Into" works for me! (n/t)

[pinto]

9. Good article. I think it's a little late for Bushco and diplomatic fever.

They've studiously ignored this situation in favor of a tunnel vision unilateral agenda. Now events seem to be beyond them, as many have mentioned. Pointing a finger at Syria and Iran and riding around in golf carts with Putin isn't diplomacy.

I may be wrong and there may be some US diplomatic initiative in the works that is focused on brokering some kind of de-escalation, but there doesn't seem to be any sign of that at all.

[rodeodance]

11. its a Reuters article--should get fair coverage

[uppityperson]

12. that's what I am hoping also

what happened to the diplomats? How about sending Poppy and Bill?

[Malva Zebrina]

13. It is out of his control and he does not know what to do at all--he will

leave it to the next guy because he is such a gaddam coward.

because he made such a mess out of Iraq that NO ONE can depend upon him or any of his cohorts. Where is Condi? I heard a rumor that she was told to shove it by the Israelis. Is she not the vaunted Secretary of State with the high degrees that gets her nowhere? Condi has learned to play the puppet game--she is a trained monkey, in spite of all that educamational learning. She is useless and is not doing a damn thing but hanging on. That is safe if she can hold it for two more years and believe me, she knows how to talk the talk--that is all her degrees taught her. She is laughed at behind her back, even though she has demostrated that exposing her thighs and her ass and her new shoes, might just get the attention of all those old farts. They laugh at her.

No decisions by the "decider" on Israel? NONE? Looks that way to me and we are all being jerked around by this, while murder and killing is being done with our money and in our name.

Is that what we must tolerate for the sake of not being labeled "anti-semitic"?

[TripleD]

17. Bush didn't stay on the sideline

He gave Israel the green light with his comments yesterday.

[damntexdem]

18. Distracted by Iraq and Iran, nothing!

This is Israel's part of an American attack on Iran. And Dubya would like nothing more than a distraction FROM Iraq -- especially a distraction of the American people from what a hellhole Iraq has become under American sponsorship.

[PATRICK]

19. "friends and critics" and Reuters

unless they plan on big crocodile wailing over the inevitable Bush war would do better to openly accuse Bush of the probable INTENTIONAL complicity with Israel(the dark RW, not its people) in widening the brouhaha into the openly long ballyhooed and predetermined Iranian attack.

Few options indeed if Bush and Cheney NEVER intended anything else but to start these fires for the greater good of a bigger fire and so on and so on.

Skip this embarrassing namby pamby reporting and "advice" and hand-wringing about the bunch of warmongering crooks who are killing people all over the Middle East for fun and profit. Spare us the servile and awestruck sympathetic posing. It is so bad and so clumsily evident I would not hesitate to put up these so-called "friends and critics" in their own special courtroom at Nuremberg. I would vote for it. I would pay for it.

This is "constructive", pleading disingenuously with these brigands to do the right thing in a "difficult" situation of their intentional creation for which they are thoroughly responsible and in which they are immensely pleased and enabled?

[krkaufman]

20. Send Clinton.

And let him take Ross, Holbrooke, et al.