A new poll shows that "70 percent of Americans oppose sending more troops" to Iraq. That is, they oppose the surge, the escalation, Bush's "new" strategy.
Bush hasn't just lost the Iraq War. He's lost the American people.
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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the most partisan of a hyper-partisan caucus of Republicans, has announced that he will filibuster any legislative attempt by Democrats to block the surge.
And he may have Joe Lieberman's support.
Like Bush, McConnell thinks it's important "to stay on offence and to finish the job". But what does that even mean? Being on offence hasn't worked, and 21,500 more troops won't make much of a difference, if any. And the "job"? Is that establishing a peaceful, free, and democratic Iraq? Hardly. Is it having the Iraqis stand up on their own? Maybe, but how will the Iraqis conduct themselves once the U.S. leaves, once those additional U.S. troops are no longer embedded among them? Is it pacifying Baghdad? Maybe, but is that even possible? The sectarianism is there to stay. Any pacification would only be short-term.
The partisans are as misguided as their great leader.
But at least they're not all crazy in that august Madisonian body:
President Bush’s decision to deploy 21,500 additional troops to Iraq drew fierce opposition Thursday from congressional Democrats and some Republicans — among them Sen. Chuck Hagel, who called it "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam."
I'll take Hagel over Lieberman any day. Do you think they could work out a trade?
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I argued yesterday -- both during and after the speech -- that Bush's plan amounts to little more than hedging his bets. There will be a focused troop increase, but there are also those "benchmarks" that the Iraqis must meet. If they don't -- when they don't -- the U.S. will pull back. In other words, this temporary surge is a cover for likely, if not inevitable, withdrawal. But Bush won't call it defeat. He'll blame the Iraqis -- and the Democrats, of course -- for failing to do what they needed to do.
Bush launched a reckless war that was grossly mismanaged. The Iraqis are not blameless, to be sure. The Sunni insurgents and the Shiite militias are ripping the country apart. But it's simply wrong of Bush, if not downright repugnant, to put the majority of Iraqis in this position. Is it their fault that Bush botched the war and occupation? Is it their fault that so much has gone wrong? They are in no position to stand up on their own, neither the government nor the army nor the police. There may be a number of different reasons for that, including the culture of irresponsibility fostered under Saddam, but Bush and his warmongers deserve much of the blame for the fact that Iraqis are in this position of incapacity.
And yet failure will be their fault, not Bush's. So much for Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule. The U.S. broke it, but the Iraqis will be left to fix it on their own.
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But what else is going on here? As the war in Iraq begins to escalate, will there be war with Iran and Syria? That seems to be what Bush was saying:
These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. 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. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.
And there may be more. Steve Clemons asks: "Did the president declare 'secret war' against Syria and Iran?" It seems that Bush may have recently "sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran. The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country." In other words: "Bush may really have pushed the escalation pedal more than any of us realize."
With the Iraq War lost, are Americans ready for new wars with Syria and Iran? If these wars do begin, if they have not already begun, there will be no other recourse to stop the madness but impeachment.
The U.S. raid of the Iranian consulate in Irbil today may be a sign of much bigger things to come. For more, see here.
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The presidency of George W. Bush has been a disaster, one of the worst in history. And it may soon be about to get even worse.
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