Ignatius: After the Handover

[grytpype]

After the Handover

By David Ignatius
Tuesday, June 29, 2004; Page A23

...

How President Bush handles the reality of an Iraq policy gone wrong will be a test of the man. If he repeats the "Mission Accomplished" rhetoric of a year ago, it will reinforce the impression that Iraq has been a tissue of lies, from the original justification of the war as a hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the final accounting.

...

The political challenge will be to show the country that a second Bush term would be different from the first. This is not an administration that can credibly run on the slogan "Four More Years." So Bush will have to make clear that his conduct of foreign policy over the next four years would be better and wiser. That shouldn't be impossible: Over the past three months, Bush has quietly revamped his Iraq policy from the old "Field of Dreams" hope of transformation to a pragmatic and sometimes cold-blooded art of the possible. Bush should own up to this new realism on Iraq, and the change of course it represents, rather than continue with his moralizing rhetoric.

...

more

[whistle]

1. Bush has screwed himself, he has lied so much that he is beginning...

...to believe his own lies. Time for Schrub to get a straight jacket and heavy doses of Thorazine.

[Miss Authoritiva]

2. It could be that the seat's been reserved for Negroponte, not Bremer.

"It wasn't the desperate flight of helicopters from the roof of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon in 1975."

Four more years of Bush? What would the foreign policy of a second Bush Administration be? There's so much that he simply wouldn't dare to do the second time around. And would Congress dare sign the checks? And what would the domestic policy of a second Bush Administration be? There's so much that he simply wouldn't dare to undo the second time around. And would Congress dare sign even more bad checks?

[struggle4progress]

3. I do not share your optimism that these extremists will now act ...

with restraint, being chastened by their experiences. A second Bush Administration will be much like the first, IMHO, but with added hubris associated with a "second victory." Its foreign policy will continue to be based on aggressive and forward US military posture designed to intimidate the rest of the world: although this might be controlled somewhat by falling enlistments and draft resistance at home, the Administration might deal with this issue simply by continuing its policy of developing a privatized mercenary army at higher cost. Will a rightwing Congress sign the checks? Of course: they are determined to destroy the federal government by imposing a crushing federal debt. Meanwhile, record deficits associated with the military actions, together with another round of taxcuts, will be used to justify massive rollbacks in social programs.

:tinfoilhat: I often hope I'm nuts :tinfoilhat: