07 September 2003

From Swagger to Stagger, MAUREEN DOWD, New York Times, 7 September 2003 As I've frequently pointed out to my friends at Lucianne.com, this Republican administration is all about marketing and salesmanship. Dubya and his buddies sold the American people on war with Iraq, because Dubya and his buddies wanted war with Iraq. A case could be made for an elective-type (as opposed to a necessary) type war on the basis of Saddam's decade-long defiance of the UN, after he (Saddam) lost a war in which he had initiated territorial aggression. This would have involved diplomacy and working with the UN and "old Europe" to develop a true coalition to interdict the regime. Now, of course, Dubya is back, hat-in-hand, asking for help with the mess he made. Instead, the Republican administration, which had regime change as its goal since inauguration day (a goal that was part of Clinton's foreign policy as well), was not of a diplomatic disposition. Therefore, they chose the path of bellicosity and unilateral arrogance, using emotions generated by 9/11 as an expedient, and ultimately shifting their focus from the immediate threat, i.e. terrorism, to the elective threat, i.e. Iraq. They have since then spent most of their time trying to explain how it was all  the same thing. Now, of course, they've made it the same thing by making Iraq a Disneyland for terrorists. So, I guess it was kinda like a self-fulfilling prophecy generated by their marketing ploy. Very nice article from Dowd. Here are some excerpts: "Tonight will be a stomach-churning moment for Mr. Bush, and he must be puzzling over how he got snarled in this nightmare, with Old Europe making him beg, North Korea making him wince, the deficit making him cringe, the lost manufacturing jobs making him gulp; with the hawks caving in to the U.N. and to old Saddam Baath army members who want to rebuild a security force; with Representative David Obey demanding the unilateral heads of Rummy and Wolfie, so that "Uncle Sam doesn't become Uncle Sucker"; with the F.B.I. warning that more Islamic terrorists who know how to fly planes may be burrowing into our neighborhoods." "Does Mr. Bush ever wonder if the neocons duped him and hijacked his foreign policy? Some Middle East experts think some of the neocons painted a rosy picture for the president of Arab states blossoming with democracy when they really knew this could not be accomplished so easily; they may have cynically suspected that it was far more likely that the Middle East would fall into chaos and end up back in its pre-Ottoman Empire state, Balkanized into a tapestry of rival fiefs — based on tribal and ethnic identities, with no central government — so busy fighting each other that they would be no threat to us, or Israel." "The administration is worried now about Jordan and Saudi Arabia in the face of roiling radicalism." "Some veterans of Bush 41 think that the neocons packaged their "inverted Trotskyism," as the writer John Judis dubbed their rabid desire to export their "idealistic concept of internationalism," so that it appealed to Bush 43's born-again sense of divine mission and to the desire of Mr. Bush, Rummy and Mr. Cheney to achieve immortality by transforming the Middle East and the military." "These realpolitik veterans of Bush 41 say that Bush père, an old-school internationalist who ceaselessly tried to charm allies as U.N. ambassador and in the White House, "agonized" over the bullying approach his son's administration used at the U.N. and around the globe." "Some of the father's old circle are thinking about forming a Republican group that would speak out against the neocons. "What's happening in Iraq is puzzling," said one Bush 41 official. "The president ran on no-nation-building. Now we're in this drifting, aimless empire that is not helping the road map to peace." "W. has always presented himself as the heir of Reagan, and dissed his father's presidency, using it as a template of what not to do." "But as he tries to dig himself out tonight, he may wish he had emulated the old man, at least when it comes to slicing the deficit and playing nice with the allies." 7:34:45 AM    comment [] trackback []

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