Bush’s last throw

[cal04]

Not for the first time on Christmas Eve, the eyes of the world are focused on the Middle East. The shadow of Iraq hangs over London and Washington. In New York the United Nations security council has been voting on sanctions to try to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And from Bethlehem the Archbishop of Canterbury and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, warn that Christians have become a persecuted minority in the Middle East because of the government’s Iraq policy.

One thing is certain: change is in prospect in Iraq. Today we carry the opinion of Frederick Kagan, who believes that change has to result in the US deployment of significant extra troop numbers, at least in the short term. This is the “one last push” argument that says the White House cannot hope to slink away from Baghdad, leaving the Iraqis in charge, without first stabilising the capital. That, however hard to sell domestically, requires more troop deployment.

Mr Kagan is an influential figure. Together with his father Donald, he wrote While America Sleeps in 2000, warning of the threat from Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. His brother Robert is co-founder of the Project for the New American Century which, nine days after the September 11 attacks, published its famous neoconservative blueprint for US foreign policy; including ousting the Taliban in Afghanistan and deposing Saddam Hussein. The Kagans, together with figures such as Irving Kristol, his son William and Norman Podhoretz, have tilted US foreign policy along neoconservative lines for five years.

Now, despite the loss of Donald Rumsfeld, they appear ready to do so again. Robert Gates, the new US defence secretary and associated with the so-called realist foreign policy of the president’s father, George Bush Sr, returned from Baghdad for a Camp David summit with George W Bush yesterday. On his trip, Mr Gates heard from US commanders that extra troop numbers on top of the 140,000 that America has there already could be counterproductive. The Iraq Study Group, under James Baker, the former secretary of state, did not exclude the additional short-term deployment of forces but its focus was on cutting numbers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-2517656,00.html

[whistle]

1. January 5, 2007 begin the impeachment of Bush and Cheney

[midnight]

2. What a Happy New Year thought you have in mind.

I will be going to midnight mass soon and will include this in my prayes this evening. Peace.

[reprobate]

6. I don't know if it would be an impeachable offense, but someone should

investigate whether lifelong and continuing utter incompetence would qualify.

After all, here is a man (and I use the word advisedly) who has never done anything on his own successfully without the help of daddy's friends. And now he even ignores the advice of daddy's friends and goes his own way.

I wish someone in the White House press corp would ask him what if the 20k to 50k more troops don't succeed in stabilizing Baghdad? How many more will he then send and where will he get them? Does he plan to institute a draft? I certainly hope so, since that would assure his removal from office, I think.

[IndianaGreen]

3. More like Bush's version of Custer's Last Stand

with the same predictable outcome.

It is sobering to think that containing Iran could be an even bigger headache than stabilising Iraq.

Even Rupert Murdoch's The Times admits that this is Bush's folly.

[Barrett808]

4. The Kagan editorial is here:

Send more troops to Baghdad and we’ll have a fighting chance
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x253110

[Barrett808]

5. Why does anybody give the AEI / neocon losers any column space?

If they ever had any credibility at all, it's long since blown away by events. Any respectable publication should shun them, except for purposes of ridicule and furthering prosecution.