Hiding The Reality
“. . . And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.”
- “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold, written in 1851,
quoted by Bob Koehler, Ignorant Armies, December 20, 2006
“We’re not winning, we’re not losing,” Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. The assessment was a striking reversal for a president who, days before the November elections, declared, “Absolutely, we’re winning.”
“Victory in Iraq is achievable,” Bush said. “It hadn’t happened nearly as quickly as I hoped it would have.
“But I also don’t believe most Americans want us just to get out now,” the president said.
54 percent said the U.S. should withdraw its troops immediately or within the next year, support for Bush’s handling of the Iraq conflict has decreased to 28 percent with a record 70 percent of respondents saying they disapproved of Bush’s war management. Half of those polled said a stalemate was the most likely outcome of the war. 27 percent said that the U.S. needs to completely overhaul its strategy and 46 percent said major changes were needed.
Support for his management of anti-terrorism efforts dropped to 42 percent while 55 percent disapproved.
Bush’s overall job approval was 36 percent versus 62% who said they disapproved of his performance in office.
He does not interpret the Democratic electoral victories as a mandate to bring U.S. involvement in Iraq to an end.
“Bush does not seem to have understood the message of mid-term elections,” said Andrew Burgin, spokesman of the Stop the War Coalition. “The whole political class appears to be out of touch with how this war started, what is happening in Iraq now and what the future holds.”
For a brief moment, it looked like Bush’s Killer Attack Lap Poodle recovered a sense of reality. Prime Minister Tony Blair was to meet US President George Bush in Washington December 7, 2006, to try to forge a joint plan for a phased withdrawal of British and US troops from Iraq, starting early next year.
Syria applauded Blair’s effort, calling it “a U-turn in Mr Blair’s foreign policy” and expressing relief that Britain was ending its “polite repetition” of American geopolitical positions in the Middle East.
Syria’s ambassador in London, Sami Khiyami, said, “The British are changing back into the smart political players we expect.” He also said Syria believed that America’s attempt to transform Iraq into a bulwark of pro-Western democracy was finished, and “the game is over”.
The celebrating began too early:
‘Brainwashed’ Blair losing battle to prove his influence
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
21 December 2006
Tony Blair’s “shoulder to shoulder” support for George Bush has been called into question again by claims that he was “brainwashed” by President Bush over plans to pull troops out of Iraq. Even some Blairites are starting to question the Prime Minister’s stance. They are appalled that President Bush has refused to honour his 2004 promise to expend “capital” on the Middle East peace process during his second term.
The Prime Minister returned yesterday from his seven-nation visit to the Middle East, apparently without achieving any significant breakthrough in the peace process. The trip has been overshadowed by a growing perception that Mr Blair’s relationship with President Bush is very much a “one-way street” in which Britain gets very little in return for his unwavering public backing for Washington.
Tareq al-Hashemi, the Iraqi Vice-President, claimed that Mr Blair was ready about three months ago to back a timetable for withdrawing allied forces from Iraq, but was “brainwashed” into changing his mind during his recent talks with President Bush in Washington. He told the Council on Foreign Relations in New York: “It is quite unfortunate that your President made a sort of blackmail out of Mr Blair.”
His claims echoed a report by the respected Chatham House think-tank which claimed that Mr Blair had enjoyed no significant influence over the Bush administration, despite the military, political and financial sacrifices that Britain had made to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, the outgoing director of Chatham House, said: “Blair has learnt the hard way that loyalty in international politics counts for nothing. And his successor will not make the same mistake of offering unconditional support for US initiatives in foreign policy at the expense of a more positive relationship with Europe.”
At least in the land of Oz, they know better than to fall for the hair-of-the-dog remedy for Iraq. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Friday Australia does not plan to contribute to a potential increase in troop numbers in Iraq.
But that doesn’t deter the Decider! The only vote of confidence he needs is the one he gives to himself. Thus, despite the fact that the majority of American voters have expressed disapproval for his actions in the Middle East, he said he considers the electoral outcome a call to find new ways to make the mission there succeed.
This calls his motivations into question. Bob Burnett of opednews.com answers the $64 trillion dollar question: Why Can’t Bush Admit We’ve Failed in Iraq?
He doesn’t want to admit he made a series of ghastly mistakes, because that would open Pandora’s box: Americans would insist on answers to a host of embarrassing questions about our Iraqi goals, objectives, and strategies. We’d want to understand why we failed in Iraq.
Inevitably that inquiry would reach one conclusion: there was a failure of leadership by George W. Bush.
Certainly. But is the failure of leadership one of faulty performance or one of serious personality flaws? Robert Scheer believes it’s the latter:
What are they smoking in the Bush White House? Even as government statistics now show marijuana is America’s No. 1 cash crop, it is important to remember that militarism is the most dangerous drug threatening our sanity. The Bush Administration is hooked on the drug of military might.
Succumbing to the Bush fantasy that freedom is fertilized by firepower, even formerly sober folks — first Colin Powell and now new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates — get a contact high from cozying up to the walking hallucinogen that is our president.
I disagree. It isn’t that simple, or else Bush’s polling numbers wouldn’t be so low. There has to be another reason why Bush refutes and rejects the Will of We, The People. Larisa Alexandrovna doesn’t believe either assertion either. She thinks the puppetmaster is pulling Bush’s strings:
How many dead bodies will it take before Congress says that stalling for Godot is not feasible (always knowing of course, that it has never been ethical)? Or perhaps a better question to ask is to whom is this administration beholden and for whom has this entire travesty of foreign policy been devised? I believe that the intended winner was always meant to be the Saudi regime, not the US, nor the Iraqi people.
The President claims he is listening to different voices of opinion, but anyone who has watched this arrogant, self-serving administration should know by now that the only voices Bush listens to are the ones that come with cash. The only winner that could have been intended as a result of this mess in Iraq is the House of Saud. Perhaps this is why our beloved Vice President recently ran to the feet of the Crown Prince as soon as he was summoned — that is, to assure the royal regime that the US will not abandon the House of Saud’s plans?
If the Saudi’s are in fact the country for whom we are fighting a proxy war with Iran, then it stands to reason we cannot leave until we neutralize the Iranian threat to our benefactors. America has long since ceased being anything other than an oil junkie, holding on for dear life to the robes of its dealer.
But in fact, it appears that the Saudis are no longer satisfied with our performance, and are taking steps to protect its regional interests without US governmental contribution:
Saudi Royals Snub Bush, Fund Opposition to U.S. Troops
By Jeffrey Klein and Paolo Pontoniere, New America Media
December 21, 2006
Saudi Arabia, fearful of a nuclear Iran and a Shiite Iraq, is taking steps to influence U.S. policy in Iraq. How hard can the White House push back on the Saudis? It’s the Saudis who are now doing the pushing. Last week Saudi financiers showed their political power by forcing Tony Blair to peremptorily cancel his own government’s investigation of a slush fund reportedly kicking back 32 percent to Saudi royals on their military purchases from Great Britain. The Saudis reportedly told Blair they’d never buy British weaponry again if their Swiss bank accounts were investigated by the Brits.
While the debate about negotiating with the Iranians and the Syrians raged in America’s leading circles, Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Riyadh for talks.
Simply put: the king read the riot act to the vice president.
“The Saudis think a nasty civil war in Iraq could quickly sour into an even nastier regional war,” says John Pike, one of the United States’ foremost military analysts, “so they’re not in a real patient mood.”
It isn’t just Iraq that has the Saudis’ attention. Iran is centered in their sites, and not just for the fact that they would be the main political and economic support for a Shia-dominated region to be carved out of the carcass of Iraq:
The Saudis are clear about their bottom line: If the United States isn’t careful about withdrawing from Iraq, the Sunni kingdom will have no other choice but to arm Iraqi’s Sunnis, especially if the Saudi’s arch-rival, Iran, which has already destabilized the regional power equilibrium by launching a nuclear program, rushes into a military vacuum left by the Americans.
The kingdom may also be building its own nuclear program.
Last week in Riyadh, at the end of a two-day summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council (a six-country organism including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates), the Saudis announced their interest in developing a joint nuclear energy program. Publicly, Arab officials said the program would be directed at meeting the burgeoning demand for electricity in the region. According to Gulf officials, despite their enormous oil reserves, which power everything from electricity generation to water desalination, the Gulf States need a new source of energy.
Few observers doubt that promoting the idea of a joint atomic energy program between the predominantly Sunni Arab states is a way for Saudi Arabia to send a message to the United States that the Arab state will match Tehran’s nuclear power if it needs to.
For years now the international press has been awash with reports about a Saudi collaboration with Pakistan to develop a Saudi nuclear program. Early in 2006, the German periodical Cicero reported that satellite imagery obtained by Germany’s secret service indicated that Saudi Arabia has set up [with Chinese techincal assistance] in Al-Sulaiyyil, south of Riyadh, a secret underground city and dozens of underground silos for missiles. According to Cicero, those silos may be already armed with long-range Ghauri-type missiles of Pakistani origin. This information was corroborated by Pike. According to Pike, a great part of the financing for the so-called Islamic Bomb, Pakistan’s nuclear program, has been provided by Saudi financiers.
Forbes believes this assertion of Saudi nuclear goals enough to publish it, as do the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and The Brookings Institute, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative, which says that Saudi Arabia has several reasons to consider acquiring nuclear weapons
Another opinion supports this accusation of Arabian nuclear proliferation, putting it in Bush Bravado terminology:
Steve Clemons, senior fellow and director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, said, “To some degree what the Saudis are doing is puffing up because they see nobody else in the region doing so.”
That quote comes from the following article, which exposes a deep rift in the Saudi ruling family over continued dependence upon American military strength for their national security. Uncle Bandar is alleged to be behind on faction of this split:
Talk in Saudi Arabia turns to ‘Iranian threat’
By Hassan M. Fattah
December 21, 2006
Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Washington, abruptly resigned after just 15 months in the job. The resignation set off rumors of a long-running battle over the kingdom’s foreign policy. Privately, Saudi royals and analysts with knowledge of the situation said Turki resigned because of deep differences with the national security minister, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, over the government’s plan to deal with Iran.
A member of the royal family with knowledge of the discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the fight is between those like Bandar, who has sought to closely back the Bush administration as it seeks a toughened policy on Iran, and those like Turki who have sought to avoid taking clear sides in the sectarian conflict and believe the only solution to the problem is in negotiating with the Iranians.
Saudi Arabia’s next ambassador to the United States will be Adel al-Jubeir, a young U.S.-educated diplomat who was drafted by the king in 2001 to repair the nation’s image in America that had been shattered by the Sept. 11 attacks. He is a close associate of Bandar.
Many Saudis have also grown openly critical of the country’s policy on Iraq, citing its adherence to a U.S.-centric policy at the cost of Saudi interests. “The Saudis made a big mistake by following the Americans when they had no plan,” said Khalid al-Dakhil of King Saud University. “If the Saudis had intervened earlier and helped the Sunnis they could have found a political solution to their differences instead of the bloodshed we are seeing today.”
Saudi newspapers now openly decry Iran’s growing power. Religious leaders have begun talking about a “Persian onslaught” that threatens the existence of Islam itself. In the salons of Riyadh, the “Iranian threat” is raised almost as openly and as frequently as the stock market.
More pessimistic analysts here said the country has lost significant strength and stature in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, even as Iran, with its populist, anti- U.S. agenda, has reaped the benefits.
“The possibility of having conflict is very high,” said Abdlerahman Rashid, managing director of the Arab satellite news channel, Al Arabiya, and a respected Saudi columnist. “Who will face the Iranians tomorrow? Just the Israelis alone? I don’t think that is possible.”
Turki, Clemons and palace insiders said, lobbied Washington for a broader policy that eschewed a military confrontation in favor of a policy that will strike Iran’s interests. In effect, Clemons said, Turki had sought a plan mirroring the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, led by James Baker, a former secretary of state, and Lee Hamilton, a former congressman, but with a harder edge.
Last week, a group of prominent Wahhabi clerics and university professors called on the government to begin actively backing the Sunnis, noting that “what Iraq, as a country and a people, has gone through in terms of a Christian-Shiite conspiracy preceded by a Bathist rule is one chapter in the many chapters of the conspiracy and an indicator for the success of the plan of the octopus which is invading the region.”
At a late-night reading earlier this week, a self-styled poet held up his hand for silence and began a riff on the events in neighboring Iraq, in the old style of Bedouin storytellers.
“Saddam Hussein was a real leader who deserved our support,” he began, making up the lines as he went. “He kept Iraq stable and peaceful,” he added, “And most of all he fought back the Iranians.”
The Sunni Saudis see Iran as being a serious threat to their continued hold on power over theri Shia countrymen long before they can construct a credible deterrent, which is why they so strongly push for a US attack on Iran, preparations for which appear to be underway.
But no matter how you cut it, there is no longer any Bush vision for the Middle East. That focus is now under Muslim control, however chaotic at times, no matter what the Neo-Crusaders try to do about it.
And they can like it, or get outa Dodge, pronto. Like the majority of us want.