Scrambling for some semblance of progress

[babylonsister]

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/11100.html

Scrambling for some semblance of progress
Posted 1:25 pm

snip//

According to the NYT’s front-page report, Fallon and Maliki spent considerable time discussing what kind of progress would satisfy Congress over the next couple of months. I have a follow up question: does it matter?

The president has already said he doesn’t care what Congress says, believes, or does. He’ll veto funding for the troops, he’ll smear anyone who disagrees with him as terrorist-sympathizing traitors, he’ll defend his policy no matter how tragic its results. Now the administration’s worried about impressing Congress? Quickly?

All the talk from the administration is about speed. Over the weekend, Condi Rice said Iraqis “don’t have the luxury, really, of time.” A couple of weeks ago, Robert Gates said the “clock is ticking.” Yesterday, Fallon apparently emphasized the same points.

First, the rhetoric contradicts the policy. As I noted the other day, Bush’s approach to the war is predicated on the notion that our patience has to be endless. To do otherwise would be to leave before the job is done, which would mean, as the White House sees it, the decline of Western civilization. If our patience is limited, we might abandon Iraq, leaving terrorists to fill a power vacuum that will endanger the world. As far as the administration is concerned, if Iraqis are given a finite amount of time, the “suiciders” and “dead-enders” will think we’ll eventually leave, and they’ll “wait us out.”

And yet, all the rhetoric is about pressuring the Maliki government to act quickly anyway, to satisfy domestic political concerns. There’s a disconnect. If ours is an open-ended policy, as the White House insists it is, congressional impatience is irrelevant. There are bigger things at stake, right?

Well, maybe. Bush has the luxury of knowing that Dems don’t have a veto-proof majority, so his policy remains intact. Then what’s with the sudden interest in rushing Iraq to show some results? It seems the most likely explanation is the simplest one: the White House has come to believe that Republicans are this close to bolting and joining the Dems on a major policy shift.

Stay tuned.