What Bush Could Not Bring Himself to Say

The grotesque absurdity of this war, the Groundhog Day feeling that everything said or written about the war today was said or written three years ago, has taken the term "Kafka-esque" to unimagined new levels.

What is clear is that no matter how he tried to finesse it in his speech, the interests of George Bush are not at all the same as the interests of anyone else: not the opposition party, not his own party, not the American or Iraqi people, not the globe. In this intractable quagmire he is the only one who is starting to see some daylight. A little over a year from now he will finally, finally, have pulled himself out of Iraq and back to Crawford.

This is a guy who has never worked hard in his life. If an easy answer wasn't immediately apparent he just skipped that question and moved on to the next.

That is why in his mind he has already pulled up stakes. A little over a year from now he will be able to say, in the immortal words of Freddie Prinze back on the old show Chico and the Man, "'snot my job, man."

How on earth can his fellow Republicans be so stupid as to follow him into retirement? Are they just like him? Do they all just want to play golf for the rest of their days?

George Packer in the new New Yorker has written yet another excellent and exhaustive piece on the list of (bad) options for detaching ourselves from the tar baby that is Iraq. Where he keeps getting stuck is his insistence that if we leave, more hell breaks loose in a land where hell is already firmly entrenched. Nevertheless, he solicits advice from every major player so his piece is required reading.

The most amazing quote is from our U.N. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, one of Bush and Wolfowitz's staunchest neoconservative enablers and our former ambassador to Iraq: "We've made mistakes," he said. The U.S. has "been like a five-hundred-pound gorilla, sucking the air out of getting any kind of cooperation, rather than giving others a chance."

What?! How many Iraqis, how many Americans have died because you personally, Ambassador, oversaw an American imperialist pipe dream? And when I say pipe I mean oil pipeline. Tar is an oil derivative so tar baby is a perfect analogy. Cheney's greed coupled with your neoconservative incompetence is doing what neither the Soviet Union, al Qaeda or the French could do: defeat the world's last remaining superpower.

We are stuck to Iraq while China and Europe and Russia can prepare for a future without our hegemony. I have often likened us to a bullying mastodon who stumbled into a tar pit (again with the oil derivative analogy). The other mastodons look on while we slowly sink.

The only way out is for the others to lower us a branch to help us out. The problem is that they have no compelling reason to. We were mean and arrogant and they are more powerful with us sidelined, perhaps sidelined forever.

What the President cannot bring himself to understand is that the only way out of this mess is through international cooperation. Barack Obama mentioned it in his major policy speech yesterday but even he didn't emphasize it as much as it needs to be.

We need to find creative ways to make it in the interest of the world to help us clean up our mess.

For Europe we can promise them a significant share in the oil revenues Cheney so wanted to hoard for himself.

For the Arab world we can give them something more important than what they already have so much of: pride. If we, the sole remaining superpower, humbly ask for a pan-Arab and Muslim solution to this mess then they will have a compelling emotional stake, not just a geopolitical stake, in a stabilized Iraq. The Arab world is understandably touchy about the West's derision for their culture. Partnering with them fully in Iraq might just help diminish their suspicions about us and our motives.

The final weapon in our arsenal should be money. Developing Muslim countries with significant armies like Egypt and Indonesia could be paid handsomely to come to our aid.

The Iraq war was lost by Bush's incompetence years ago. Today our leaders must realize that bogging down our entire military until Bush's term expires threatens to lose us so much more than just Iraq.

Comments

[Defyant]

Well said, I take exception to one thing. This is not a war. It is an illegal occupation. Who are we at war with? To say Al Queda is not accurate. Saddam did not allow Al Queda in his country. Are we at war with the Iraqi's? How can we be at war with them, we are their liberators.

After Bush declared mission accomplished, from the aircraft carrier, this became the furthest thing from war, and became an international game. With people as pawns, and the prize was power and control of a huge piece of valuable real estate.

The word "war" brings with it all kinds of historical precedents, none of which fit this current situation. There are things that are happening like what happens in war, killing, bombing, dying, General, soldiers, politics. But this is not war. This is a human tragedy which if we survive it, will be looked at as one of the great propaganda schemes of all time.

Until this occupation is accurately called what it is, "an illegal occupation," then nothing will change.

[protagonia]

Troll-Strike is strong here. Good. They're scared. Also good.

[nainam97]

There are so many comments on this great piece that I hate to add one more.

But if any of you have seen the movie "Blood Diamond" where an entire South African village undergoes a bloody massecre, you'll remember the words of the sole survivor, an old man:

"Good thing we don't have any oil here, then we'd have REAL problems!!"

[riversideliberal]

If Congress could pass a law stipulating that Bush could continue the war only if all equipment, weapons, and construction were provided by companies in which Cheney did not own stock, the war would end tomorrow. It's the Halliburton profit margin that drives this war.

By no means am I glad that American soldiers are dying in Iraq. But I am glad, and in the long run I think it'll be good for the planet, that American hegemony is slipping away. Fifty years from now, other nations and coalitions will be far more important than the U.S., our bully pulpit will be gone, and we'll have to play nice in the sandbox. (All this depends, of course, on the next few presidents not going insane and nuking China to avoid paying our debts.)

[esquire07]

Bush and Cheney have made a fortune off the War - as have their criminal compadres in the Arms and Oil industries.

It is the job of US servicemen and women to die for corporate profit. That is what the Occupation is about - profit.

Deep down, and behind the rhetoric - Americans could not care less about the troops.

Troops will die and Democrats will fund it. Its that simple.

America will continue the War until the Country implodes.

[JimReed]

"For Europe we can promise them a significant share in the oil revenues Cheney so wanted to hoard for himself."

That belongs to the people of Iraq. It is not yours to promise to anyone else.

[realpolitic]

This essay touches many bases. I think the U.S. is like a mastodon sinking in a tar pit. Other countries are watching us sink and we are too arrogant to accept a lifeline. China will lead the next century. They do not try to influence the internal politics of other countries, but simply trade with them and build large public works projects abroad.

America has been in the driver's seat a long time. Perhaps it is our time to be in the passenger's seat.

[bumpersticker]

Listening to what Bush did say, it occurred to me that we have been conditioned to believe the good guys speak English, and the propaganda and evil is spoken in foreign tongues.

Listening to Bush, I found it a culture of death, and the honoring of death as somehow a touching sacrifice for his leadership. There were so many distortions in almost every line, that it it seemed evil to me, even if spoken by an American, sitting in a hallowed Office, speaking English.

[paixa3]

There was an article in the NYTimes today that is an absolute MUST READ. It was in the TimesSelect section of the internet version.

Hunt Oil seems to have landed the rights to oil yesterday, provided by the kurds. This action is one of the reason that the latest round of 'DISCUSSIONS' over the petrochemical bill in Iraq FAILED.

Hunt is a big donator to Bush and also involved in Foreign Intelligence roles.

Check it out....

[EvereaderinSC]

I fail to see how "wimp" could be used for Jimmy Carter. The man's won a Nobel Prize and has used his influence for better worldwide in his last years. Even without any of that, he nor any of our other presidents purposely started a war, invaded a country & brought down that country's leader. Come to think of it, Vietnam as one example may be close. But that was mainly the politicians' reaction to McCarthyism and the whole "soft on Communism" schtick. It got us about as much as those yakking about be being "soft on terrorism" doing these days.

Please take a look at Kevin Phillip's book, The Bush Dynasty, (Phillps by the way, is a Republican - or was one). In it he has a section on how the Bush grandfathers were both extensively involved with re-arming the Germans all through the 1930's right up until 1942. That is the origin of the Bush fortune. That is part of the way their succeeding generations view the world. The Bush family is a bunch of second-rate thugs who along with the defense contractor vice prez are raping our country.

The sooner folks acknowledge this, the sooner we'll know who the real enemy is out there...or maybe right here. It's like a world where mafia bosses and their families have lifetime secret service protection at the expense of us peons....

[YankeeCanuck]

About those French. To quote Bill Maher, they have a different attitude toward elections than we do. They vote -- there's a concept! An 85% turnout in their last election as compared to our 35%.Could it be they take democracy more seriously than we do?
Part of the reason we are in a Kafka-esque Groundhog Day loop, as Trey so aptly characterizes it, is that we have been asleep at the switch.How was he re- elected? This is the president's war, not the either party's war, not the American people's. Americans, myself included, need a re-education as to the meaning of the constitution.We need to become more actively involved in our own politics -- if we abdicate our democratic responsibility to be truly informed and to participate then we'll abdicate our democratic rights.

[anotherbozo]

Great blog, Mr. Ellis. "This is a guy who has never worked hard in his life." Why didn't I think of that in this context? But on the money. Tarbaby--good metaphor. Mastodon, also good. Olberman suggested having a wolf by the ears--exhausting to hold on, lethal to let go. I imagined of having shot a hole in the dike, we plugged it with our finger, no "exit strategy" in sight.
A snappy metaphor would be useful to Democrats, ones with moxie who need to break through fuzzy-speak. "Quagmire" no longer describes this hideous impasse, this perfect storm of a mess.

[OCPatriot]

Your article, and the editorial in the New York Times, "No Strategy, No Exit" all point to the same conclusion. This President needs to be impeached. Bush is always lying, and soldiers and civilians are dying. There seems to be no other way to stop the madness of King George.

[OCPatriot]

Your article, and the editorial in the New York Times, "No Strategy, No Exit" all point to the same conclusion. Your editorial "No Exit, No Strategy" leads only to one conclusion. This President needs to be impeached. Bush is always lying, and soldiers and civilians are dying.
There seems to be no other way to stop the madness of King George.

[thirteen13]

Our currency says it all "IN GOD WE TRUST".

[BoarDLaze]

Trey,

Your post was all over the place. I think you did a credible job of presenting the current and future challenges created by the invasion and occupation of Iraq, it's also important to point out that Zal Kalilizad's bears a great deal of responsibility for this "fine mess."

Your diagnosis of the motives of those involved was less good. It wasn't all greed, laziness and oil. Most of it was a well intentioned belief that the projection of American power and "democracy," would have a positive and transformative effect on the middle east. It doesn't make sense, it is foolish on its face, but it was no less sincere.

It's also true that the neocons are all to willing to take cues from the Israeli extreme right, and seemingly don't realize that some sort of middle-ground preace between the Israelis and Palestinians is (a) a necessary precondition to stability in the region; and (b) not going to occur at the point of a Likud bayonet.

You fail to point out the obvious -- that big oil profits far more from keeping Iraqi oil off the market than from selling it. Although, with Bush and Cheney controlling American and heavily influencing world energy policy, it's a win - win for big oil either way. If you want to analyze why this war was acceptable to our mid-east OPEC buddies, and why big oil was so onboard -- I'm sure that they'd analyzed the situation and realized that they'd profit hugely no matter what if only by keeping the Iraqi fields out of Russian and Chinese hands.

BDL