That Was the Week That Was and Wasn't

Whew, what a week to take for vacation...Mark Felt outs himself, reminding everyone of the viciousness and mendacity of Dick Nixon--who now looks like a piker compared to the fools at the top of today's slag heap. Still, though, it was a bit of a hoot to read or hear some of that era's collection of--I was going to say swine, but that's an insult to good pigs everywhere...how about "collection of plasmodial slime molds" instead?

Aside: Ben Stein's demented rant is perhaps the most hilarious and vicious--he manages to contort himself into the political argument that Woodstein and the Post are responsible for Cambodia. If/when Stein alerts us to the imminent arrival of the mother ship, I'll let you know.

Dick Cheney (see idiot no. 5) achieved a histrionic triumph, pronouncing himself "offended" by AI's use of the term "gulag" in describing the, um, gulag of, to paraphrase Don Rumsfeld, the known and unknown prisons operated by this country (not to mention the "known unknown" facilities). Meanwhile, the Bush administration's indignant denial of Koran abuse at the known detention facility at Guantanamo turned out to be a case of "they doth protest too much."

Re: Iraq, this WaPo article caught my eye, because I have the same attitude and I also was rather (no pun intended) amazed last week when CBS found the flimsiest of silver linings following that day's series of car bombs--according to the Tiffany Network, the "good" news is that Iraq might be running out of people willing to blow themselves up. I dunno--maybe Scott McClellan a high level administration official now must personally approve their nightly script.

James Wolcott emerged from a vacation of his own and came back swinging. He cites William S. Lind's Wreck it and Run article, which is about as "must read" as there is...so please give it a look if you've got the time. And you've gotta love Wolcott's opening lines:

Donald Rumsfeld, whose Steely Resolve more and more resembles aluminum siding, is a man unafraid of confronting the full spectrum of America's enemies from Al Qaeda to Amnesty International. Some say he is too zealous in defending our freedom. Too candid. Too cocksure. Too unwilling to accept counsel and criticism. Too wedded to his overriding vision of military transformation.

Those some sayers are right.

His retirement as Secretary of Defence will leave a trail of ruination as its legacy that will stretch forward into the indeterminate future.

No shiite. Wolcott also cites Immanuel Wallerstein, who, in this article, nicely summarizes 50 years of US policy in the region--and the train wreck that's been the policy of the last four:

When you're a powerful country, it's hard not to play with fire. But the Bush regime has been particularly reckless. Take for example the triangle Iran, Iraq, the United States. The history is well-known. The first famous CIA intervention anywhere was in Iran, way back in 1953...

What President Bush seemed to expect in 2003 is that the U.S. would be able to install, rather rapidly, a friendly regime in Iraq, and then proceed to force a showdown with Iran. What they did not expect was a quite powerful resistance movement in Iraq, one which they now seem unable to contain seriously. What they did not expect was effective political pressure from the Shia to hold early elections that would give the Shia a majority in the government. What they did not expect was that the U.S. military would be so overstretched that there is now no way the U.S. can seriously consider undertaking any kind of military action to change the regime in Iran.

And least of all did they expect that it would be Iran that would be in a position to be the great diplomatic victor of the U.S. invasion. Take what happened on May, 15, 2005. The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, made an unannounced visit to Baghdad, during which she spent her brief time half scolding, half pleading with the new Iraqi government, and all this is public. She said that the Iraqis should try to be more "inclusive," the code word for making more space for Sunni Arabs in the government. She cautioned against "severe" de-Baathification, meaning the inclusion in power of at least some of those who supported Saddam Hussein. Presumably, Rice thinks this might undermine the resistance to U.S. occupation and make it possible to reduce U.S. troop commitment to Iraq (the better to use them against Iran?). Curious turnaround where the U.S. Secretary of State is pleading on behalf of at least some ex-Baathists. And, as far as one can tell, to half-deaf ears. The analyses of the present Iraqi government, or rather its priorities, seem to be different.

Two days later, the Foreign Minister of Iran, Kamal Khazzeri, arrived for a far more successful four-day visit. He was greeted at the airport by Iraq's Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, himself a Sunni and a Kurd, who broke into fluent Farsi. After three days, Iraq and Iran signed an agreement to end hostilities between them, in which the new Iraqi government agreed with Iran that the Iraq-Iran war was initiated by Saddam Hussein. The two countries renewed criticisms of Israel. If Bush thinks the new Iraqi government is going to join the U.S. in a crusade against Iran, that other member of the "axis of evil," he clearly has another think coming.

Relations between Iraq and Iran have now become normal, en route to becoming friendly. This is not what the neo-cons had envisaged when they launched the drive for a U.S.-led "democratization" of the Middle East. When the U.S. forces leave Iraq (probably sooner rather than later), Iran will still be around, and (thanks to the U.S.) stronger than ever.

Anyway, it was good to be gone, and now it's good to be back--spent the week not looking at the internets, so I'm still catching up...hopefully I'll have got back to within site of the lead pack by the end of the day.