Is Bush Doomed?

[demodewd]

http://antiwar.com/article.php?articleid=1718
January 17, 2004
by Paul Craig Roberts
Fear must be coursing through President Bush's veins as he realizes the Iraqi trap in which the neocons have placed him. Bush is caught between an Iraqi civil war and a wider insurgency.
Desperate to extricate himself from the weekly carnage well before the November election, Bush can neither deliver on his promise of democracy via direct elections nor impose his plan for an Iraqi assembly elected indirectly by caucuses.

If Bush delivers on his democracy promise, the Shi'ites with 60% of the population will be elected, and the country will break out in civil war. If he tries to water down Shi'ite representation with his plan for an assembly elected indirectly by caucuses, the so far peaceful Shi'ites are likely to join the violence.

If the Shi'ites become violent, the insurgency would be too large to be contained by our present occupying force. Moreover, the outbreak of a general rebellion in Iraq would spill over throughout the Middle East where unpopular secular rulers are sitting on a smoldering Islam. Our puppet in Pakistan would likely bite the dust. Israel would then face countervailing Muslim nukes.

If you think more US troops are needed now in Iraq, imagine how many more would be required to deal with a wider conflagration. Where would they come from? The US military is already so thinly stretched that soon 40% of the occupying troops will be drawn from the National Guard and reservists, resulting in tremendous disruption in the affairs of tens of thousands of families.

Pilots and troops are shunning the cash bonuses offered for reenlistments. The troops recognize a quagmire even if their neocon overlords cannot. The only source of troops is the draft.

A Shi'ite insurgency that brought back the draft would deprive Bush of reelection. A civil war with the prospect of a Kurdish state would bring in the Turks. On January 14 Turkish prime minister Erdogan said that Turkey will intervene in the event of Iraq's disintegration.

The Shi'ites and the Turks are forming an alliance as both have the same interest in maintaining the geographical integrity of the Iraqi state. The US could come dangerously close to military conflict with a NATO ally.

All of this was perfectly clear well in advance of the ill-considered invasion. If Bush wasn't smart enough to see it, why didn't his National Security Advisor or his Secretary of State? How did a handful of neocon ideologues hijack US foreign policy?

Bush did not campaign on a neocon policy of conquest in the Middle East. There was no public debate over this policy. The invasion of Iraq was the private agenda of the neocons.

Why have the neocons not been held responsible for their treason in abusing their presidential appointments to substitute their personal agenda for America's agenda?

Bush has been the neocon's puppet for so long that he is now stuck with responsibility for their horrible mistake. With no way of his own to get out of his trap, his arrogance toward the "irrelevant" UN and our doubting allies has disappeared. Come bail me out, he pleads.

Bush, desperate to be extricated before doom strikes him is experiencing a reality totally different from the chest-thumping of neocon megalomaniacs, such as Charles Krauthammer, who declared the US so powerful as to be able to "reshape, indeed remake, reality on its own."

Bush now knows that he lacks the power to deal with the reality of Iraq. Indeed, Bush cannot even deal with his own appointees.

[RBHam]

1. Rove on one side, Perle on the other...

Bush is destined to become the most contemptible American President in histroy. At least Richard Nixon's ghost can now rest easy. At least Tricky Dick never had to trot out his wife on national TV to defend himself on charges of treason.

[Art_from_Ark]

22. Tricky Dick DID trot his dog out

to defend himself against charges of corruption.

"My Fellow Americans: I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice Presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity have been questioned..."

www.watergate.info/nixon/checkers-speech.shtml

[Flagg]

2. the neocons were warned before the war

if shit hit the fan they'll have to send their kids dying .

Poetic justice

[lovedems]

3. bu$h and his administration are idiots. I remember him during the

campaign criticizing the Clinton administration for "nation building" I remember him saying he would never attack without having an "exit strategy". All they cared about was invading Iraq and didn't put one ounce of thought into the geopolitical fire storm that would likely erupt after the fall of Saddam. This administration is so short sighted, it is dangerous.

I constantly hear freepers saying "it only took 51 days to take Baghdad". People, I still don't think we have Baghdad. It is a mess over there and like everything else this administration has touched, they are making political decisions rather than practical ones. Who cares about the future of Iraq, we have an election to win.

I hope his planning and agenda comes back to bite him in his cowboy ass. He deserves to be criticized harshly for what he has done to this country and Iraq.

[Raster]

4. Congrasts LovDems on your 999th post...

...and I couldn't agree with you more about we really don't "have" Baghdad. It's a precarious occupation at best, like sitting on the point of a pin. Nothing about this cluster fuck has turned out the way promised or what the neocons hoped for. I've recall motivational posters that commented "When you're in a hole, STOP DIGGING!" Lordy, no truer words have ever been spoken.

[lovedems]

5. Thank you for noticing! Now I just have to get a star!

Hopefully I will do that in the next couple of weeks! Thanks! :)

[mike1963]

12. But he never needed an exit strategy, because he never planned to exit.

That would be in violation of PNAC!
:grr:
:eyes:

[caledesi]

6. Well Bremmer is supposed to resign in June, but I heard it will be

sooner because it's total chaos in Iraq and he is worried for his life. (no link, sorry)

[rockymountaindem]

8. He's not doomed...

Double digits... sweet!

Earlier someone mistook me for a Republican. I don't know how that happened (look at my name...). Anyway, this is not a defense of Bush.

Almost all the people I know are hard-core Bush lovers. They either purposefully ignore any and all bad news they hear about Iraq, or they maintian that whatever problems we have to face are worth the cost of "doing the right thing". Just as a point of reference, these people maintain that WMD were not the excuse Bush used to invade Iraq, but to free the Iraqi people. I know... I know... "Rocky, how can you be friends with these people?". I ask myself the same question almost every day... fact is that where I live there are few other options.

All I'm saying is that I don't see the appropriate amount of rage coming from either my pals or the nation as a whole. It seems to me that Bush is extremely popular, in spite of or even because of his mistakes... please change my mind!

[mike1963]

13. I'm guessing you're in CO Springs.......care to comment?

I haven't been there in a while but I know it's a viper-pit of knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing morons...

[lagniappe]

16. Yeah, in Houston it's the same thing.

Most of my friends are really smart people. They are all engineers of one sort or another, and about 80% of them are Republicans. Unfortunately, they are all very ignorant about anything other than their job, their church, and their hobbies. They watch Fox News. So to them, Bush is honorable and everything is just peachy in the world.

However, I really like our chances in 2004. I am as optimistic about Bush losing as I was his father in '92. In fact, I am convinced that Bush will loose. People are reminded every day that Iraq was a mistake and this will drip, drip until the election. Iraq is not going away and will probably get worse.

The Dems also have strong candidates this time. I like Dean, Kerry, and Clark. In 2000 I thought Gore ran a poor campaign and allowed the Bush team to paint him in a corner. This will not happen again, and I think the Democrats will come out unified and ready to rumble once we have a nominee.

The hard core Bush lovers will never change their vote. We just need to convince the 20% of swing voters. I think that will happen.

[aquart]

21. Your friends are the votes he already had.

Who do you know that didn't vote for him before, but will vote for him now?

[susu369]

7. Easy question

"If Bush wasn't smart enough to see it, why didn't his National Security Advisor or his Secretary of State?"

Condisleezie is totally incompetent and Powell is—as Chris Floyd describes in his latest article - "a pathetic bagman."

[elfin]

9. He remains confident and why not?

This is so confusing to him that he figures it MUST be confusing to the voters - so they will tune out.

If there is real trouble, Poppy's global network will make things so he gets elected anyway. Not to worry.

Am in the middle of "American Dynasty" - so forgive my gloomy assessment. A truly scary book.

[young_at_heart]

10. I agree........VERY scary, indeed!

The more I learn about the Bushes the more I want to see them all back in Texas. I can't stand to fly into Houston any more.

[PeakOil2008]

11. Poppy's "Global Network" couldn't get his own aristocratic ass re-elected

There's not much reason to believe that it will work this time, for Junior.

[mike1963]

14. Hell's Bell's, he can't even deal with a bag of pretzels!

The guy is, to be polite, crazier than a shithouse rat.

[MasonJar]

15. Quit calling the Bushes aristocrats.

Where I come from we call people like that "white trash." They care nothing for anybody except corporate buddies and the money they can accumulate. There is no "noblesse oblige" in either action. Now John Kerry might qualify because he has worked hard in the Senate to make America better.

[aquart]

20. The Bushes remain low rent sleaze no matter how rich they get.

Or how connected they are.

Class isn't spiteful, petty, greedy, and ungracious. Class would NEVER clean a pair of glasses on the back of a woman's jacket.

The Bush family is trash to the DNA.

[many a good man]

17. To paraphrase a famous quote...

"No man ever lost a presidential election by underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

...or something like that.

[DrBB]

18. P. T. Barnum, I believe

[many a good man]

19. Actually, it was H.L. Mencken

Mencken said "No one ever went broke underestimating..."

Barnum is famous for the corollary: "there's a sucker born every minute."