The War Which Must Not Be Named

by DemFromCT

When your credibilty is in the toilet about one thing, it's in the toilet about everything. That's a lesson Bush supporters (the few that are left) are going to have to learn the hard way.

That doesn't make us anti-democracy or pro-losing. It just makes us a good deal more honest and sophisticated than the editorial board at the Washington Post. Now I realize that's a very low standard to set, but the reality-based community tries not to indulge in fantasies that kill American soldiers, and certainly tries not to justify it after the fact. The WaPo and other editorial boards that support this President and this war have much to answer for, but the first thing they have to explain is why things aren't working.

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said today that the violence in Iraq could only be described as a civil war and Arab states should try to bring Iraqis together to stop the strife.  
 
      "The definition of civil war is that the people (of a country) are fighting each other ... I don't know what we can call (what is happening) in Iraq except a civil war," he told reporters.  
 
Prince Saud's remarks came a day after Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned that Iraq was in the throes of a civil war that threatened the Middle East, comments that sparked anger in Iraq and Iran.  

While the wagons circle around Bush in a tighter pattern (and the wolves circle around the wagons), the news just doesn't hold out those grounds for rallying that the talking heads search for in their constant attempt to justify conventional wisdom. For example, taken from the pages of today's news:

Democracy in the Arab World, a U.S. Goal, Falters

Analysts and officials say the political rise of Islamists, the chaos in Iraq, the newfound Shiite power in Iraq with its implication for growing Iranian influence, and the sense among some rulers that they can wait out the end of the Bush administration have put the brakes on democratization.

"It feels like everything is going back to the bad old days, as if we never went through any changes at all," said Sulaiman al-Hattlan, editor in chief of Forbes Arabia and a prominent Saudi columnist and advocate. "Everyone is convinced now that there was no serious or genuine belief in change from the governments. It was just a reaction to pressure by the international media and the U.S."

Really? You mean this week's reason for the Iraq War isn't seen as serious policy? Gee, I wonder why the American President isn't seen as credible on this issue? Well, when it comes to war and peace, our real allies take us seriously. For example, we are sabre rattling to bring Iran into line. It's a calibrated and coordinated response designed by grownups to save lives and reassure Europe. It's working, right?

Jack Straw yesterday dismissed as "completely nuts" a claim that America is preparing to launch a nuclear strike against Iran.

      The foreign secretary was commenting on an article in today's New Yorker magazine, which says the US has drawn up secret plans to attack facilities in Iran, if necessary.

But that reaction didn't happen in January when Hersh published THE COMING WARS.

George W. Bush’s reeletion was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities’ strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control—against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism—during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as “facilitators” of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

I wonder what's changed? Maybe Bush's credibility? Or maybe Cheney's?

An attorney knowledgeable about the CIA leak case said President Bush did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide disseminate declassified intelligence about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction in
2003.

Instead, the lawyer said Bush merely instructed Cheney to “get it out'' and left the details to him.

According to the lawyer, Cheney chose Lewis Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-chief of staff.

Emptywheel's the Plamologist at TNH, but it sure sounds like "protect the President at all costs" damage control to me. The point is that the accumulation of bad news is directly affecting foreign policy as international pundits reach the same conclusion Americans have... incompetence at the top and eroding credibility do not a leader make. That's why fingering Bush as the leaker-in-chief is the worst of a week of bad news for Republicans. It makes everyone count the days to 2008 when the worst American President in modern times can be made to just go away. Bush's leaker-in-chief status makes difficult foreign policy nearly impossible to conduct, and domestic policy initiatives dead on arrival.

How can anyone in the world work with a President they can't trust?

Comments

[Melanie]

Nice readaround, Dem. The Hersh piece is absolutely chilling. We're supposed pay for yet another collosal fuck up, it seems.

[Gridlock]

Cheney to Faisal (as quoted by BBC's John Simpson, when asked why they were so determined to invade Iraq):

"Because it's do-able".

Speaks right to the heart of this bunch of incompetent fuckers' mindset, to me.

[Gridlock]

Worth a read in its entirety, actually:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4894148.stm

[Pilgrim]

As Melanie says above, the New Yorker piece is quite chilling. It's chilling, for me, because I do not doubt that Bush would do it, attack Iran. Hersh points out that it's believed by insiders that he wants this war (including nuclear attack) as his legacy. He sees all this in the "messianic" context of his belief in fundamentalist notions of the end of the world, rapture of Christians, all that sort of thing. It's chilling, seriously.

[John Forde]

I love the title 'The War Which Must Not Be Named'.
Why have no satirists exploited the irony of:
Bush's continuous assertion that "America is at war"
and his continuous denial that Iraq, "is not at war."

[Mimikatz]

William Arkin at the WaPo on-line, something the rest of the paper obviously doesn't read, is very worried. You have to read to the end to get this:

"A war with Iran started purposefully or by accident, will be a mess. What is happening now though is not just an administration prudently preparing for the unfortunate against an aggressive and crazed state, it is also aggressive and crazed, driven by groupthink and a closed circle of bears.

"The public needs to know first, that this planning includes preemptive plans that the President could approve and implement with 12 hours notice. Congress should take notice of the fact that there is a real war plan -- CONPLAN 8022 -- and it could be implemented tomorrow.

"Second, the public needs to know that the train has left the station on bigger war planning, that a ground war -- despite the Post claim yesterday that a land invasion "is not contemplated" -- is also being prepared. It is a real war plan; I've heard CONPLAN 1025.

"Like early 2002, the floodgates have opened and the stories about Iran war planning have started. Some claim Dick Cheney has already made the decision, some claim war this spring, some say the U.S. and Israel are collaborating. When The Washington Post and The New Yorker purport to write about these plans in major pieces, I need to know more than the Bush administration is planning options: What options? What alternatives? What assumptions?

"It just isn't news that the sun will rise tomorrow, nor is it that if it gets hot, all sorts of bad things could happen."

[Meteor Blades]

Joe Biden - on The Daily Show and elsewhere - has been arguing fiercely against John Kerry's plan for withdrawing from Iraq on the grounds that Kerry's plan does not encompass anything regarding how the U.S. will avoid a wider war in the region.

What I want to know is what Biden is doing to avoid wider war in the region when it comes to Bush's plan.

And what are we going to do? Can we count on the Democrats to speak up? To stand up? Even Howard Dean has said:

Secondly, under no circumstances will a Democratic Administration ever allow Iran to become a nuclear power.

What precisely does that mean? How far would the Democratic leadership be willing to ride tandem with Bush in an attack on Iran? How far would the Democratic rank and file be willing to go?

Will the "fighting Dems" challenge this insanity?

Would masses of people in the streets stop it? Would massive civil disobedience do the trick?

[janinsanfran]

USA Today ran a description of a poll in February that I found completely chilling:

"There is little doubt among Americans about Iran's intentions. Eight of 10 predict Iran would provide a nuclear weapon to terrorists who would use it against the USA or Israel, and almost as many say the Iranian government itself would use nuclear weapons against Israel. Six of 10 say the Iranian government would deploy nuclear weapons against the USA."

With that set of beliefs underlying everything else, it is hard to imagine how to stop this onrushing catastrophe -- and crime against humanity.

[Melanie]

janinsanfran,

The only thing that I would change in your remark: "yet another crime against humanity."