Blame Iraq

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While I was writing this, the BBC reported that U.S. troops stormed the Iranian consulate in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and seized six members of staff.

In reviewing last night’s speech, Walter Shapiro wrote in Salon:

Ever since Bush denounced the theretofore unknown “Axis of Evil” in his 2002 State of the Union Address, at a moment when the nation was still fixated on the horrors of Sept. 11, it has been instructive to listen for new rhetorical gambits in major presidential speeches. That is why it is possible that the most fateful words that Bush uttered from the White House library on Wednesday night were these: “Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.”

Even though the Democrats have won the rhetorical war in labeling the Bush war plan as escalation, 21,000 additional troops is pretty small potatoes by the standards of prior wars such as Vietnam. But expanding the battlefield to the borders of Iran and Syria — if that was indeed what Bush was suggesting — now that would qualify as escalation, as even Henry Kissinger might admit.

See rege at The Carpetbagger for more discussion. This truly is the part of the speech that needs the most scrutiny and attention.

Oh, and without even looking, I’m willing to bet that one could find critics of the war complaining about the unguarded borders from at least 2005, if not earlier.

Well, on to the reviews —

I have to say one good thing about the New York Times — its editorials beat the pants of the Washington Post’s. Compare/contrast what the two august newspapers cranked out this morning:

Shorter Washington Post: Risks, obligations, fudge, ponies, maybe, uncertainty, ponies, wait and see. More fudge.

Shorter New York Times: Bleep.

Here’s the first paragraph from the NY Times:

President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush’s war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it.

It gets better after that.

Over at MSNBC/Newsweek, Howard Fineman is working hard to redeem himself from the days when his fawning deference to Lord Dubya earned him the title Media Whore of the Year.

George W. Bush spoke with all the confidence of a perp in a police lineup….

…if he was trying to assure the country that he had confidence in his own plan to prevent that collapse, well, a picture is worth a thousand words. And the words themselves weren’t that assuring either. Does anyone in America or Iraq , or anywhere else in the world for that matter, really think that the Sunnis and Shia will make peace? Does anyone think that embedded American soldiers won’t be in danger of being fragged by their own Iraqi brethren? Does anyone really think that Iran and Syria can be prevented from playing havoc in Iraq and the rest of the region by expressions of presidential will?

To answer Howie’s question — yes, there are people who think that. There’s no end to the remarkable self-deluding properties of human cognition. But enough of the freak show.

Shorter Boston Globe: Bush won’t face reality.

Shorter Martin Kettle (UK): Blair is screwed.

Now for some substance, from Walter Shapiro, Salon:

Throughout the long century to come, any future leader contemplating sending American troops into combat should carefully watch a tape of George W. Bush’s speech to the nation Wednesday night — and ponder its underlying lessons. This was Bush deflated, his arrogance temporarily placed in a blind trust, looking grayer than ever with his brow furrowed with lines of worry. How humiliating for Bush to be forced to say with a stony face, “The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people — and it is unacceptable to me.”

My take on the “unacceptable” line, in the context of the speech, was that Bush was wagging a finger at Iraqis for being messy. This is from the transcript:

The violence in Iraq — particularly in Baghdad — overwhelmed the political gains the Iraqis had made. Al-Qaida terrorists and Sunni insurgents recognized the mortal danger that Iraq’s elections posed for their cause. And they responded with outrageous acts of murder aimed at innocent Iraqis. They blew up one of the holiest shrines in Shia Islam — the Golden Mosque of Samarra — in a calculated effort to provoke Iraq’s Shia population to retaliate. Their strategy worked. Radical Shia elements, some supported by Iran, formed death squads. And the result was a vicious cycle of sectarian violence that continues today.

The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people — and it is unacceptable to me. Our troops in Iraq have fought bravely. They have done everything we have asked them to do. Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.

Is he not saying everything would have worked out if the Iraqis had behaved themselves?

Fred Kaplan at Slate wonders what Bush will do if the Iraqis fail again:

President Bush declared tonight that America’s commitment is “not open-ended” and that “America will hold the Iraqi government to … benchmarks.” However, he said nothing about what will happen if the Iraqis fail to meet those benchmarks. And without a warning (even a sternly intoned “or else!”), benchmarks mean nothing.

And let’s look at those benchmarks. Bush said that the Iraqi government has promised “to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq’s provinces by November.” It “will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.” It will “spend $10 billion of its own money on reconstruction and infrastructure.” It will “hold provincial elections later this year,” to empower local leaders, especially Sunni leaders. And, in a further effort to co-opt Sunni insurgency, it “will reform de-Baathification laws and establish a fair process for considering amendments to Iraq’s constitution.”

When did all these promises get made? Where did Maliki suddenly get the political power, or even the political audacity, to make them? One obstacle to reconstruction has been pervasive corruption within the Iraqi ministries; how does he hope to clean that up? The call for provincial elections has been ignored for months. The Shiite-led government promised to amend the constitution—with special attention to altering the language on oil revenue sharing and de-Baathification—back when the constitution was ratified; it has refused to bring up the issues ever since.

Still, if (if?) the plan fails, Bush will say it is Malaki’s failure, not his. From the transcript:

Only the Iraqis can end the sectarian violence and secure their people. And their government has put forward an aggressive plan to do it.

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighborhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents, and there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have. Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes. They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

That’s his exit strategy — blame the Iraqis.

Richard Wolffe, Newsweek:

… if you listened closely to President Bush on Wednesday night, the much-anticipated speech didn’t change the central mission much. It’s clear, hold and build—only this time with money behind it, but not that much money, and not enough new troops to really make a difference. And, Bush signaled loud and clear, it’s really the Iraqis’ problem now.

Yes, the president accepted a degree of responsibility for the failures that have characterized the war in Iraq. “Where mistakes have been made,” he said, “the responsibility rests with me.” But he didn’t go into much detail about what those mistakes were. The basic strategy had been right all along, Bush seemed to be saying. The tactics just needed a little tweaking. …

… Bush reduced the U.S. role to that of loyal watchdog to the Iraqi government. “America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced,” he said. “If there is change in Iraq, it will have to come almost entirely from the government in Baghdad.”…

…Yet there was little discussion in the speech, or behind the scenes with the Iraqis, of what might happen if they failed to deliver once again. Bush’s aides say that talking about consequences—or threatening withdrawal—will weaken the Iraqi government and embolden insurgents and militias. President Bush simply said that he warned the Iraqi prime minister that the U.S. mission was not “open ended.”

“If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people,” he said, “and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people.” It was a curiously impersonal construction. He never suggested the Iraqi leader might lose the support of George W. Bush. And he never mentioned that the polls show a clear majority of Americans opposing his policy of sending more troops to Iraq.

Jack Murtha and others have been saying for months that it’s time for Iraqis to take responsibility for their own country. Now, I personally never saw this as much more than a talking point, to make the bugout seem less ignoble than it might otherwise. As much as I am all for getting out asap, let’s not kid ourselves that we’ll be able to go back to sleep and ignore Iraq after that. Whatever nastiness that goes on once we leave — and there will be nastiness, although not necessarily more nastiness than what will occur if we stay — will be seized by the Right as their next great “stabbed in the back” myth. For the rest of our lives, we’ll have to listen to the whackjobs whine about who lost Iraq? Anticipating this, it appears the politicians of both parties are pinning as much as possible on Iraqis. I can’t say I blame them.

But Bush is still reluctant to let go of his glorious little war, so 20,000 more troops will be tossed into the meatgrinder. Their purpose will be to buy Bush time to knit a bigger butt cover.

But this business about the Iranian consulate worries me; it seems, well, provocative. Is Bush deliberately trying to stir up enough trouble in the Middle East that Congress cannot deny him his 20,000 troops?

See also: Juan Cole, “Bush Sends GIs to his Private Fantasyland“; Glenn Greenwald, “The President’s intentions towards Iran need much more attention.”

27 thoughts on “Blame Iraq”

  1. That’s his exit strategy — blame the Iraqis.

    Yes, but it’s only his strategy for an exit from this phase of the war. It’s his way of preparing in advance for the failure of what he announced last night — “It was Maliki’s fault it didn’t work.”

    The other war he’s fighting (and winning) is the war to stay a “war president” until January 20, 2009. He’s not going to surrender in that war.

  2. Pingback: The Heretik : The Staggering Reality

  3. I’m surprised you buy into the idea that Iraq will be a problem for the US if we just got up and left. So what if the right whines! Are we to kill more Americans in a losing cause because of it?

    None of the so-called pundits understood the message of Bush’s speech. He is convinced that the problem with Iraq is not so much the Iraqis but the Iranian government and the only way to address it is to war with Iran. We know the carrier group with the USS Stennis is schedule to leave Washington in a week or so. If another carrier group starts getting ready understand that the war with Iran is on.

    Replacing Rumsfeld with Gates was a brilliant strategy. No one would go along with Rummy starting another war but this one will be on Gates’s plate. All we need now is to provoke Iran into doing something stupid. America’s the name, warring’s the game.

  4. I’m surprised you buy into the idea that Iraq will be a problem for the US if we just got up and left.

    It’s called “facing reality.” Don’t kid yourself that we’ll be as lucky post-Iraq as we were post-Vietnam. Perhaps we will be, but we need to be braced for the political repercussions if we aren’t.

    So what if the right whines!

    “So what” is fifty more years of the Right claiming they and they alone are qualified to handle foreign policy and the DLC demanding that Democrats be more hawkish. For historical background, click here.

    Are we to kill more Americans in a losing cause because of it?

    I explicitly said otherwise, dear. Learn to read.

  5. It bugs me how paternalistic his rhetoric is becoming. It’s “You stand up, we’ll stand down,” only worse: You didn’t stand up when we told you to, so we can’t be held responsible for what happened. You kids better do as I say or I’m turning this car around and we’re not going to Disney World.

    It’s not really clear to me what the ultimate goal is anymore. Olbermann did a segment on Countdown last night listing all of the justifications there have ever been for the war, and not a single one of them has held up over time — no WMDs, no al Qaeda, we’re not safer from terrorist attacks, ding dong Saddam is dead, la la la — and it only highlights how useless and devastating the war is. So what are the Iraqis supposed to do now? What is the goal? An end to the violence? Democracy? A unicorn colony in Baghdad? And how do you propose to make a corrupt government and several warring factions suddenly hold hands and start singing? Throwing more troops at the problem hardly seems like a solution.

  6. I want to know more about the ten or so journalists and their backround conversation with W before the speech. The comments from Russert & Williams were chilling.

    “there‘s a strong sense in the upper echelon of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue in the country and the world in a very acute way”.

    For those of you, it should be equally chilling the MSNBC has abbreviated its transcript:

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16578298/

    to omit the comments Matthews & Olbermann made at the end of the show. He discussed the elusion that we can go into Iran without enormous consequences, as well as the overwhelming evidence that we know more than W does.

    For the latest in well written comment, also read Tom Engelhardt’s latest

    The President Alone in the Dark
    http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?emx=x&pid=156374

  7. My feeling was that Bush really, really didn’t want to give that speech. He looked terrible. He sounded terrible, like there was somebody off-camera with a gun pointed at his innards. I’m not even sure he understood what he was saying.

    I think they’re truly out of ideas. Novak said today that reports are that the State Department under Condi is in shambles. The Iraq Study Group met for naught. The Joint Chiefs hate this. The Cheney cabal is now gearing up for all-out war in Iran, and since they have no Army or Marines to speak of, that means naval and air attacks.

    Pat Buchanan said last night that a surge won’t work, but we have to do it anyway because we have no other options. What the hell?

  8. I must apologize for the level of incoherence in my previous comment. I have the blessing of several children acting out around me.

    I maintain that when you hear “responsible redeployment” anytime this year, it will mean garrisoning the previously mentioned permanent bases, particularly those of the Kurdish north.

    Kuwait’s not going to take all of us, and our troop levels will probably be over 100,000 in the region on election day ’08. I’m not agreeing with this, but if this is what inflames you and your readership, at least acknowledge that it is the de facto policy of the ‘guvment’.

  9. What is the goal?

    I think his goal is to avoid retreating as long as he’s in the White House, so he can pretend he didn’t lose.

  10. For anyone who despairs that the election didn’t make enough of a difference, watch Hagel slam Condi.

    ‘The Most Dangerous Foreign Policy Blunder in this Country Since Vietnam’

    http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/11/hagel-escalation-vietnam/

    Cross border incursions are the spark to the broader conflict W seems to want. Neocon forever.

    Remember, Frist wanted to talk about Terri Schiavo. So Biden is not the only Senator trying to use hearings to prep his run for the Oval Office.

    Even Alter thinks he’s got a chance.

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16497901/site/newsweek/

    I prefer the sound of Obama/O’Brien as seen here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SITe0ZbuAg

  11. Let’s also remember that this factors deeply into the presidents highly flawed personal character – by leaving Iraq, he is admitting to himself as well as the rest of the world that he lost the fight with daddy he tried to pick on the front lawn of the family mansion. Refusal to proceed to Baghdad in Gulf I was arguably the single most prudent political decision of the H-Dubya administration.

    Sending more soldiers to fight for a cause they themselves are unable to accomplish to the very breaking point of the military, IMO, should be a focal point of debunking the notion that republicans are “strong” on national security in any but the most superficial, flag-waving, jingo-istic sense.

    This president and his supporters must be discredited in the longer term on the simple basis that their own stated goals in Iraq – this week, last week, last year, or before the war altogether – are fundamentally unacheivable, ethically unacceptable objectives to assign to the US military. These objectives are based in a narrow-minded, hegemony-focused, and ignorant understanding of the dynamics of world history, other cultures, and non-christian religions. As such, those who advocate these objectives are totally unqualified to be defining american foreign policy.

    This, in my view, is the real lesson of Vietnam. We won the battles but lost the war not because of the liberal media, but because the objectives of that war were inherently unacheivable by winning *any* number of battles in that country, short of exterminating the civilian population.

  12. Bush will send a battle group into the Persian Gulf to annoy Iran hoping to start a confrontation. If Iran uses one of these, http://www.softwar.net/3m82.html , all hell will break loose because that missile can destroy an aircraft carrier. He will have no problem getting all America on board for a war with Iran at that point.
    Mr. Bush needs to be removed from office PRONTO.
    His little attack in Somalia killed 31 civilians and no “Al Qaida linked” Terrists. Somalia BTW has significant oil drilling prospects.
    Google “Oil Somalia”

  13. Folks,
    Bush plainly believes we are already at war with Iran. He has nothing to lose, politically,(he thinks), by widening the war that he believes already exists. This is the “multi-generational” war we have been told about by neocons for a while now.
    Be afraid.
    Griff

  14. I am having such a hard time believing that the whole country is hanging on every nuance and word and fart of l’ infant terrible, nee W. How did we get to this point?! I second erinyes, Mr. l’enfant Bush needs to be removed from office PRONTO…….

  15. I think your analysis of Bush’s motives are spot on, Barbara. It is all about Bush defending Bush interests – which do include oil btw – and nothing about the best interests of our country, Iraq, or the globe.

    In his speech, he keeps asserting the ‘right’ to attack any country anywhere, no matter if 70% of the country says ‘no’. Kill Sunnis? Okay. Shias? Sure. Would he push policies to do just that if they were Protestants and Catholics?

    He treats us like we’re hicks too dumb too know what’s best for us. Then tortures, kills and promotes ethnic cleansing.

    He’s a flim-flam man who can’t even run a decent con game anymore. The damage he’s done to Iraq and to our military is criminal, and he deserves to be treated as a criminal. And most of the mainstream press still treats him with a reverence that borders on deification. When defecation is closer to the truth.

  16. Donna, the reason we hang on to every word, burp, and twitch is because the bad little boy, as you call him, has the nuclear launch codes. And we’re all afraid that he might actually be stupid enough to use them.

  17. I just watched Zbignew Breszinski and a fellow from the council on foreign relations say much the same- not only about Bush’s words toward blaming Iran and Syria but the actions: attacking the Iranian consulate, sending AC 130s to Somalia and beefing up the Naval presence. Looks like George is gambling for broke like a desparate gambler- throwing all he can on the table. I think I said before- he and dick are like Wormtongue and Saruman- defeated but highly dangerous still.

    This whole episode shows that the past 6 years didn’t just happen. Yes inteeligence was stovepiped and truth tellers were swatted down, But it is the listeners: bush and dick ,who heard only what they wanted to and in defeat continue to call for victory like hitler in the bunker.

  18. US troops stormed an Iranian embassy???!!!! I was around when Iran stormed the US embassy and took hostages. At that time, it was supposed to be a violation of our sovergn soil. A US embassy in a foreign country is (legally) US soil. The invasion of our embassy was regarded as an act of war, and Carter was widely criticized (to put it mildly) for not responding with a declaration of war.

    Did we commit an act of war? On whose authorization? Where does this fit in with the War Powers Act, for our military to commit offenses of international law to provoke a hostile government?

  19. To add to Doug Hughes’s questions, is all this stuff about escalation done in order to keep our attention on Iraq while they start a war with Iran?????

  20. The escalation is just a delaying tactic for Bush to postpone his inevitable failure in Iraq. The reason Bush is targeting Syria and Iran as culprits is because he wants to accentuate the terrorist elements and downplay the civil war aspect of his upcoming defeat. The acknowledgment of a civil war will hasten his destiny with defeat and the terrorist aspect will possibly allow him to hand off the failure in Iraq to the next occupant in the White House

    It’s become more understandable to me why Poppy Bush broke down in tears when he spoke about his youngest son Jeb’s ability to handle defeat graciously…when compared to his first born son George’s inability to exhibit any of the virtues of a good character or the courage to accept responsibility, I’m certain — as a father of two sons myself— that the realization of being a failed parent must be extremely painful to Poppy Bush. They say that real men love Jesus, but I think that real men accept their responsibility and admit to their mistakes.

  24. “The lower he falls in the polls, the more Bush lurches toward a Middle East holocaust”

    Image in my head this morning: neurotic pre-teen breaks into the gun cabinet, carries guns to school and shoots whomever he thinks ‘deserves’ it, fills his empty soul with the headiness of gun power and of being ‘the star’ in the news, authorities finally surround him to stop him, he reacts by wanting to discharge all his ammo before they can stop him.

  25. re: the Iran front

    that wasn’t just rhetoric– US naval build-up in the Gulf and the promotion of an admiral to head US forces in what has been a land war– so far– is an alarming development: the only movement forward outlined in the Prez speech was a march on Tehran.

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