Bush, the American Brezhnev

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Bush and what has always been known as the "establishment", both Democrat and Republican, have finally realized that the United States is facing a major strategic defeat in the Middle East... A defeat such as the United States has never faced before. The fact that it has never happened before means that the analogies used, such as "Vietnam" are too feeble to carry the full meaning of it clearly. This defeat will not produce a "Iraq Syndrome"; a national navel contemplation and wound licking. A strategic defeat has strategic consequences. What will happen when (not if) the US is defeated in Iraq? A strategic defeat on the order of a US version of the "Invincible Spanish Armada" means a sharp, dramatic and drastic loss of American influence in the world. The knock-on effects are so complex and far reaching as to incalculable. (They should have thought of this before they started, now it's much too late, but what the heck). This in turn will affect the bottom line of America's major corporations... The Democrats form part of all of this too, so don't expect miracles from them.... And of course there is always Israel... The skinny is, if you are or are going to be of draft age anytime in the next five or ten years, this would be a good time to start sending your CV up north to Canada. Below is a marvelous analysis by my favorite pundit William Pfaff, which will certainly clear and concentrate your mind wonderfully, as it did mine. DS

"Surging" to Defeat - William Pfaff

Abstract: White House spokesman Tony Snow said last week that the theme of President George W. Bush’s new Iraq policy, to be announced shortly, is “victory, winning.” If so it will be nothing new, only more of the same.(...) This means reinforcing failure, a common and much-deplored military impulse. It is not accompanied by an explanation of why, despite more than three years’ evidence to the contrary, what the U.S. wants to do in Iraq is feasible.(...) The Baker-Hamilton Commission tried to provide the administration with the political “cover” to abandon this impossible effort. It failed to convince, despite the commission’s many sensible judgements, because of the near-impossibility of providing a way for the United States to leave Iraq that is not a clear admission of failure, and does not have very bad consequences in Iraq and elsewhere. The consequences of leaving later will probably be worse, but that does not move this White House, since its occupants will be gone at the end of next year.(...) The commission’s recommendations are being mostly ignored by Democrats as well as Republicans because both parties and their principal leaders, including nearly all of their possible presidential candidates, are deeply compromised by having from the start supported the Bush administration’s “global war against terror.”(...) Individually, politicians in Washington have reason to fear that if they back away from the war now, and Bush continues the Iraq conflict into the presidential election year of 2008, they may face the electoral accusation of betraying their own previous commitments, and be attacked by their opponents for lack of patriotism and “surrender” to terrorism. Worse yet, accepting defeat in Iraq seems a national capitulation in ways much wider than Iraq.(...) he obstacle to such a capitulation is that not only President Bush and those Republican legislators, but nearly all of the Democratic legislators as well, supported from the start the plan to invade Iraq and democratize the Middle East. They uncritically believed in the United States as sole superpower, militarily omnipotent, responsible for international security, and moral and political leader of a world in which history had recently come to an end in the triumph of American democracy over Communism. There remained only for Washington to install that democracy in a few unruly corners of the earth, and kill all the Islamic radicals who want to defy the inevitable. With this record of past commitment, how can defeat in Iraq be acceptable? To do so amounts to acknowledgement of the defeat of the moral and political stance of the United States since the end of the cold war. This may yet prove a longer war than anyone now thinks.
READ IT ALL

Up against the wall: Baker Hamilton sets off Israeli alarm bells - Debka

David Seaton's News Links
Encapsulated here in a nutshell, from the Israeli intelligence, perma-leak, Debka, are Israel's fears of being "sold out" by United States in its "orderly retreat" from Iraq. Obviously if the United States is to maintain even a shred of prestige in the Middle East and if any of its "moderate" Arab allies are to survive, Israel will have to return all the land taken in 1967, including Jerusalem and Israel will have to pay (read the US taxpayer will have to pay) reparations to the Palestinians uprooted in 1948 in lieu of repatriation. Just as traditional anti-Semites ascribe all the ills of the world to a deep, dark Jewish conspiracy, many Jews apparently believe in a massive Goyish (in this case cold, thin-lipped WASP) conspiracy to eradicate them. To anyone thinking of adhering to either camp I would advise they apply the wisdom of "Hanlon's Razor": Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. DS
Abstract from Debka: The pair is pursuing new policy line which sacrifices the traditional US-Israeli alliance for the sake of wooing Iran, Syria and Iraq’s neighbors for help in Iraq. During his senate hearings, Gates confirmed - and indirectly justified - Iran’s quest for a nuclear weapon by declaring that Iran wants the power of deterrence against “the nuclear countries surrounding them – Pakistan in the east, Russia in the north, Israel in the west and the United States in the Persian Gulf.”(...) The designated US defense secretary did not consult – or even inform - Israel before a disclosure that violates a confidence long-held between the two governments. Gates also said that “If Iran obtains nuclear weapons no one can promise it would not use them against Israel.” He was then confirmed as defense secretary Wednesday by an overwhelming 95-2 Senate vote. The only two opposing votes were cast by two Bush allies, Sens. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., and Jim Bunning, R-Ky. They cited his criticism of the war and his view that the U.S. should engage Iran as part of a solution. The Pentagon, which has warned against granting a role to Iran and Syria at Israel’s expense, has a new master, Robert Gates. He has already applied the broom to his predecessor Donald Rumsfeld’s senior aides. Some Washington pundits accused the co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, James Baker, as forcing President George W. Bush to resort to dealing with the Iraqi Shiite-led government for the sake of an orderly US exit from Iraq. The price offered is acceptance that Iran could go nuclear within two years at Israel’s expense. The group’s recommendation of a Madrid-2 peace conference for a Middle East peace would pander to the Arabs and their European backers by pushing for a full Israeli withdrawal from territories captured in the 1967 war. Israel and its supporters in the United States would have no say – “…a unique opportunity for the US to strike a deal without Jewish pressure,” as one Washington observer put it. This sort of crude language has not been heard in Washington’s top circles since George Bush the elder was president and James Baker his secretary of state. The new-old gang has also revived the threat of an imposed “peace.” It is barely veiled in the Baker-Hamilton report’s statement: “The US cannot achieve its goals in the Middle East unless it embarks on a renewed and sustained commitment to a comprehensive peace plan on all fronts.” READ IT ALL

On Iraq polls show: all the ducks in a row, except the lame duck

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Rarely, if ever have American's been both so well informed and so much in common accord about any issue as they are today about what is to be done with Iraq. We have an elite group of "gray beards", the Baker-Hamilton Commission, and on the other, the vast majority of Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public; in this case, all are pulling in the same direction. The verdict: get out quick and organize a huge regional peace conference to cover the retreat by settling all the major issues outstanding. A general peace in the Middle East, means a peace that saves the "moderate" regimes allied with Washington and that means solving the Israel/Palestine conundrum in such a way as to salvage the prestige of those moderates with the "Arab street". That means Israel returning to its 1967 borders and turning Jerusalem into an international city and all of this without much real guarantee that Iran will forsake its nuclear programs. This is the total defeat of the neocon, hard-wilsonian project. So now we are finally going to see if AIPAC is really as powerful as it is supposed to be. This is their big test. Do they have the influence to overcome such a consensus? DS

Abstract (tip of the hat to TomDispatch): A new poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org finds that three out of four Americans believe that in order to stabilize Iraq the United States should enter into talks with Iran and Syria, and eight in ten support an international conference on Iraq. A majority also opposes keeping U.S. forces in Iraq indefinitely and instead supports committing to a timetable for their withdrawal within two years or less.(...) 75 percent say that the United States should have talks with Iran and the exact same number say that the United States should have talks with Syria. This diplomatic approach is endorsed overwhelmingly by both parties: eight in ten Democrats and seven in ten Republicans endorse talking with both Iran and Syria. There is also strong bipartisan support for calling a major international conference where diplomats from the United States, Europe, the United Nations and the Arab world could meet Iraqi leaders to discuss how to stabilize Iraq and encourage economic growth there. Seventy-nine percent (Republicans 79%, Democrats 80%) say they support such a conference; only 18 percent believe that instead foreign leaders should “stay out of Iraq’s affairs.” On the issue of how long U.S. troops should remain in Iraq, a majority of Americans reject the current policy of keeping troops in the country indefinitely. Fifty-eight percent say troops should be withdrawn according to a timetable, while 38 percent say that U.S.-led forces should only be reduced “as the security situation improves.” There is substantial variation in the length of the timetable preferred: 18 percent prefer six months, 25 percent one year and 15 percent two years. There are partisan differences on this issue, however. While most Democrats (78%) think U.S. forces should be out within two-years or less, including 61 percent who favor a one-year or less, a majority of Republicans (64%) believe forces should be withdrawn only as security improves. Fifty-six percent of Independents also support withdrawal within two years. Support for withdrawal according to a timetable becomes stronger “if the majority of the Iraqi people say they want the U.S. to commit to withdraw U.S. forces according to a timeline of no more than a year.” Seventy-three percent say the United States should withdraw in a year or less if most Iraqis want them to, including 67 percent of Republicans and 82 percent of Democrats. Fifty-eight percent also believe that the majority of the Iraqi people want the US to commit to one-year timeline. A poll of the Iraqi public conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org in September 2006 found that 71 percent want U.S.-led forces to commit to withdraw within a year.(...) This desire for a commitment to pull U.S. troops out within a year appears to arise from doubts about whether the U.S. presence helps or hurts stability in Iraq. Six in ten Americans (60%) believe that the United States’ military presence in Iraq is provoking more conflict than it is preventing. Only 35 percent believe U.S. troops are stabilizing the country. The belief that U.S. forces are provoking conflict has risen 5 points since March 2006 and 9 points since October 2004. READ THE ENTIRE POLL

Israeli position unraveling: Bush/Baker back

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Yasser Arafat was at first pleased when George W. Bush 'defeated' Al Gore for the presidency. The late Rais thought that the Shrub would follow the pro-Arab James Baker/Brent/Snowcroft policies of his father... After some time that is what looks like finally happening. Arafat must be rolling around in his grave with laughter. It becomes clearer by the day that the only way out of the Middle Eastern quagmire for the USA is to bring in all the Arab countries for a solution. First this means not destabilizing their authoritarian regimes with democratization campaigns and multi-colored "Springs". And then, so that they all have something nice to take home from the conference to show their peoples that helping the USA was really a good idea: a solution to the Palestinian question. The loser in this will be Israel This is the mirror image of the entire neo-con, "A Clean Break" strategy for the Middle East and the end of the Jabotinsky dream of a "Greater Israel" that would dominate the Middle East. In the end this policy change may set off more earthquakes in the USA than in the Middle East. DS
Iraq and Palestine: Twinned in Revised Bush Strategy on Iraq - Debka
Abstract: One of the most pressing pieces of business the US president George W. Bush must tackle in Amman later this week is the demand for an international conference on Iraq which must be dominated by a built-in agenda on the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. Palestinian leaders, picking up the new tones in Washington, decided to cash in by announcing the cessation of Hamas’ Qassam missile attacks on Israeli civilian locations, starting Sunday, Nov. 26.(...) The ceasefire – like Olmert’s promises - is unlikely to survive long after Bush’s departure from the Middle East. Since Sunday, every Palestinian and Israeli verbal pronouncement has been attuned to the wavelengths of Bush and his secretary of state Condoleezza Rice. She will join him in Amman and lead the effort to bring Israeli and Palestinian leaders together. Her mission will be to extract results from these encounters for tempting Arab rulers to lend the United States a helping hand on the Iraq crisis.(...) the brain behind this new strategy belongs to Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to three Republican presidents, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and George Bush Sr. He is emerging as the live wire behind the latest US foreign policy departures and the pivotal figure behind the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group. This panel - which submits its final report to Congress on Dec. 10 - recommends an international conference on Iraq attended by leaders from Europe, Russia, the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and the main Muslim nations.(...) such a conference would spend more time on the Palestinian-Israeli issue than on Iraq. The group’s leaders predict that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and other Arab participants will demand “progress on the Israel-Palestinian track” before letting the conference get down to brass tacks on Iraq. To lay the groundwork, therefore, Washington will have to give the international community free rein to squeeze Israel for far-reaching concessions to the Palestinians - and not only the Palestinians, if Syria is to be engaged. This would require a diametric reversal of George Bush’s previous warm attitude towards “our friend and ally” Israel, possibly even a reversion to the iciness directed against the Shamir government in the early 1990s by the elder Bush, whom James Baker served as secretary of state and Scowcroft as national security adviser. Earlier this month, Scowcroft, as chairman of the American-Turkish Friendship League, visited Ankara for an appeal to Turkish leaders to persuade the Syrian ruler Bashar Asad to cooperate on Iraq. His mindset was revealed in an interview he gave the Turkish Daily News of Nov. 9, 2006: “I think we need to embed Iraq in a larger regional solution, and that to me goes back to the Palestinian issue. I think this would put us back on the offensive psychologically and even make Iraq easier to manage.” Scowcroft then linked this viewpoint to the notion of an international conference, saying: “But I don’t think this will start with some kind of a conference because everyone will come with their preset speeches and everything will freeze again. But I think that there will be some quiet consultations in the region. I believe the Arab states in the region are eager for such a conversation. Israel may not be eager, but Israel is in bad shape right now.”(...) The cards in Washington are therefore stacked against Israel these days. An unfortunate combination has emerged of a president who regards the Jewish state as strategically weak and a brace of key US advisers on the administration’s new Iraqi policy who are drawn from the most anti-Israeli US administrations of the past. The Olmert government, however forthcoming, must brace itself for a period of intensive American pressure to cede ever more assets to curry favor with the Arabs. READ IT ALL

Befuddled Superpower

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One of the most surreal, strange and extraordinary side effects of the war in Iraq has been to find myself repeatedly agreeing with Pat Buchanan. This had never happened to me before, that I recall. This article, for example, is bang on. DS

Abstract: "The president," said an anonymous White House official, "has asked the national security agencies to assess the situation in Iraq, review the options and recommend the best way forward. … The president indicated Monday that he is interested in hearing interesting ideas both within the administration and from the Baker-Hamilton commission." So critical is this review that Condi Rice postponed her departure for the Asia-Pacific summit to participate. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told the Post the secretary has been "doing a lot of thinking" about Iraq over the last two months. Thinking about what? Replied McCormack: "The primary focus is on the State Department role in Iraq and are we pursuing the proper policies, are we asking the right questions, are we seeking the right objectives, are we using the right means to achieve these objectives, following the right strategy and tactics?" Excuse me, but this sounds like some lost soul crying in a wilderness. Yet it is the voice of the foreign ministry of the world’s last superpower in the fourth year of a war to decide the fate and future of the entire Middle East. Should not these questions have been asked, and answered with finality, by our war leaders before they marched us up to Baghdad? Are these not the questions a Democratic Senate should have asked Don Rumsfeld and Colin Powell before they gave Bush a blank check for war? READ IT ALL