Last Copter Out of Baghdad (Bush Flees Iraq Mess On The Campaign Express)

[kskiska]

by Rick Perlstein

eorge Bush is selling out Iraq. Gone are his hard-liners' dreams of setting up a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic republic, a light unto the Middle Eastern nations. The decision makers in the administration now realize these goals are unreachable. So they've set a new goal: to end the occupation by July 1, whether that occupation has accomplished anything valuable and lasting or not. Just declare victory and go home. The tyranny of Saddam Hussein will be over. But a new tyranny will likely take its place: the tyranny of civil war, as rival factions rush into the void. Such is the mess this president seems willing to leave behind in order to save his campaign.

"The Bush game plan is to have pictures of some U.S. troops leaving and the Iraqis opening their own government, the U.S. having presided over the birth of this new embryonic democracy," observes former Clinton White House adviser Sidney Blumenthal. The problem is, there will be no Iraqi democracy. There might not even be a viable Iraqi government. Instead, Baghdad will become Beirut: Iraq's three major religious and ethnic groups, the Sunnis, the Shiites, and the Kurds, will consolidate their respective positions in the center, south, and north of the country, recruit their militias, and get down to fighting for control of the power vacuum that is the post-war "peace."

Once again, as so often in these last few months, an analogy is Vietnam. And, as so often in the last three years, the analogous president is Nixon.

(snip)

Welcome to the new Iraq. Recently Lloyds of London has begun selling insurance to U.K. firms with reconstruction contracts, to pay off if America quits the scene before reconstruction is complete. An American insurer, Marsh & McLennan, has chosen not to offer its usual line of insurance for political risk, expropriation, and terrorism. The smart money in Iraq, it appears, is betting on a bugout.

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http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0402/perlstein.php

[chiburb]

1. Excellent article...

I hope everyone reads it!

[Oggy]

2. I agree

needs a kick.

[PATRICK]

3. A saving shambles

The Iraqis in their chaos are defending Iran, Syria, the ME, the Muslim world and us becuase practically speaking the nonsense would continue if everyone bowed down at this opening gambit.

Not that they won''t keep trying. The writer underestimates the "triumph of the will" character of these desperate loons and that they have achieved big parts of their dream too.

[DinahMoeHum]

4. Tee hee. After all these years of playing footsie with both Iran and Iraq

dictators (not to mention having the CIA involved in both cases) all the Repukes will have to show for it is TWO "Islamic Republics" (theocracies) instead of one.

Well, f**k 'the Republican Party. It's blowback time.

:evilfrown: