The world after George W. Bush

[unhappycamper]

The world after George W. Bush
July 22, 2007


PRESIDENT BUSH has hinted more than once that he expects to leave to his successor the task of ending America's military occupation of Iraq. His reasons for doing so may go beyond calculations about the time needed to establish security and a functioning government in Iraq, beyond a reluctance to enter history as a president who presided over the retreat from a lost war. Perhaps Bush senses that the change of direction required to cut the nation's losses in Iraq would expose the flagrant misconceptions on which his conduct of the Iraq war was based.

If Bush were to accept the need to cut deals with Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia as part of the price of containing the chaos in Iraq, he would be conceding that his grandiose notions of bestowing democracy on a key Arab country by force were delusional.

Were a realistic exit strategy to be carried out on Bush's watch, it would become apparent -- while he was still in office -- that instead of implanting democracy in Iraq and conferring security on the oil-rich Gulf region, he has wrought almost the exact opposite.

~snip~

Bush will be leaving his successor a strategic situation, in a wide arc around Iraq, that is far more dangerous than the one he inherited. Iran and its ally of convenience, Syria, have their hands at the throat of Lebanon. Iran is projecting its power not only through Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon but also through its support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. As Tehran pursues a nuclear weapons capability, frightened Sunni Arab states are considering problematic options: to develop their own nuclear capabilities or to reach accommodations with an ascendant Iran.

Simultaneously, there has been an ominous decline in America's reputation throughout much of the Muslim world and even in Europe. The horrors of Abu Ghraib, the rendition of terrorist suspects to countries that torture, the lack of legal protections for captives in Guantanamo: These and other panicky reactions to the threat of terrorism have made American preaching about the rule of law seem hypocritical. Bush has played into the hands of propagandists who portray America as hostile to all Muslims or a threat to world peace. The result is a loss of soft power, the good will that inclines foreign states and populations to give America the benefit of the doubt.

To cope with the strategic situation Bush will be leaving, his successor will have to disavow the false assumptions underlying many of his policies.


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uhc note: The Boston Globe is owned by the New York Times Corporation.

[left is right]

1. misconceptions, grandiose notions, false assumptions

what gentle words to describe the violence * deliberately inflicted on Iraq and the rest of the world! They make that monster sound merely incompetent rather than the lying, calculating sociopath that he is. It is long pass time to call a spade a spade. They were misrepresentations, massive deceptions, barefaced lies.