Newsweek: Washington’s New Watchword: Containment

[unhappycamper]

Washington’s New Watchword: Containment

As Iraq’s weak new government takes shape, the Bush administration’s best hope is for a non-bloodbath.

By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek
Updated: 4:33 p.m. ET May 22, 2006

May 22, 2006 - An old word is gaining new currency in Washington: containment. You may be hearing a lot more of it as the Bush administration hunkers down for its final two years. Containment of Iraq’s low-level civil war, which shows every sign of persisting for years despite the new government inaugurated this week. Containment of Iran’s nuclear power, which may lead to a missile defense system in Europe. Containment of the Islamism revived by Hamas and Hizbullah, by the Sunni suicide bombers in Iraq, as well as by the “Shiite Crescent”—as Jordan’s King Abdullah once called it—running from Iran through Southern Iraq and into the Gulf.

During the cold war, containment doctrine was based on the premise that the Soviet Union was a powerful force that was going to be around for a long time to come. Containment’s chief author, George Kennan, concluded that the best Washington could do was to keep the Soviet bloc penned up in its sphere of influence until it expired of its own internal problems (though Kennan later despaired that containment had become too militarily focused, culminating in Vietnam). The policy was carefully laid out in NSC-68, the basic blueprint for containment, in the spring of 1950. Forty years later, the policy succeeded.

No such strategizing surrounds the current version of containment. Indeed, few people in the Bush administration will even concede they are thinking in such terms, because the president has not permitted an honest reckoning of the difficulties he faces. On Monday, Bush again appeared to sidestep the realities, calling the new “free Iraq” “a devastating defeat for the terrorists.” Back in Iraq, however, it was just another typical day: some 20 Iraqis died in bombings and drive-by shootings, with few or no arrests.

entire article

[TayTay]

1. This seems to be the only thing they can do.

The Bush Admin is determined to 'gin in' in Iraq and be a presence in that country. They are inflexible on this point. So, given that, this is the only policy they can puruse.

It doesn't lend itself to much in the way of rah-rah flag-waving though. It will be interesting to see how they try and finesse this policy in the '06 midterms. They are not giving their candidates much to work with on this.

[Drewskie]

2. Good article (nt)