Top Ten Reasons Bush is NOT Responsible for the Recession

10) "Since when has George ever been responsible for anything." -- Barbara Bush

9) "There’s still 11 months time for wealthy benefactors to bail out U.S. economy, just like they’ve always done when Jr. screwed up in business." – Anonymous Administration Official

8) "Dick told me for sure that "Deficits don’t matter."" -- G.W.B

7) "As consumers spend the economy will mend." -- New Cliché/Slogan/Policy the brain trust in the Bush Administration has come up with to deal with the financial crisis.

6) "The Fed Chairman assures me that they have enough green ink and krinkly paper to continue printing dough as long as needed. And may I add, they’re doing a heck of a job over there at the Treasury." -- George W. Bush

5) Bush ordered super-duper secret program to buy Lotto tickets just in case the economy went south. Critics will be eating crow when the Commander-in-chief hits the jackpot.

4) "War, recession, and natural disasters. I’m sure glad my last job as the part-owner of the Texas Rangers prepared me to be a great leader." -- George "Dubya" Bush

3) "Wealthy foreigners have no choice but to keep lending us money or we won’t be able to afford their products. We really have them over a barrel, Big Time." -- Top administration figure speaking from a secure location (well stocked with ammo and canned goods) who would only identify himself as D.C.

2) "The Book of Revelation predicts the mother of all financial meltdowns just before the end of times. This recession is part of God’s plan." – Mike Huckabee (presidential candidate).

1) Sure, it's easy to blame Bush for mishandling Katrina, the disaster in Iraq, failing to capture bin Laden, and the what is shaping up as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, but you got admit the guy is a barrel of laughs.

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The Bush Recession

The politicians in Washington have a sure-fire plan to cure the credit crisis, which is fomenting a recession: borrow money and lend it to over-stretched consumers so they can continue spending like there is no tomorrow. Of course, the knuckleheads in Washington won’t tell Americans how they are going to pay for the $150 billion dollar stimulus package that aims to give individual taxpayers rebates of up to $800. It sounds good in the same way that a prescription for a gallon of chocolate-chip ice cream per day might sound good to a diabetic, but it is only a way of postponing the inevitable reckoning the occurs to every country that lives well beyond its means.

The Spanish Empire faced a similar predicament under Phillip the II before it crumbled. Spain didn’t manufacture much of anything, but it had more than its fair share of financial "wizards" who continually found clever ways to repackage debt. The Conquistadors, too, were big on plundering gold from the New World (which for a time kept the Spanish Empire afloat), just as the Bush administration was banking on exploiting Iraq’s black gold (in order to break the back of OPEC and keep petroleum prices down) as a way of keeping America’s ailing auto industry afloat.

Getting $150 billion dollars into the hands of American consumers makes a lot more sense than hundreds of billions we’ve spent turning Iraqi into a Disneyland for Islamic extremists. But for the most part, the Bush administration has failed to invest America’s resources in wise ways that will ensure a more prosperous future.

Dick Cheney, of course, once argued that "deficits don’t matter" and that conservation cannot be the sound basis of a national energy policy. According to Cheney’s logic, nations that are getting rich hoarding U.S. Treasury bonds (China) or selling us oil (Kuwait and Saudi Arabia) have no other choice but to continue to subsidize our trade deficit, lest we stop buying their products (be they plasma TVs or petroleum). The only problem, of course, is that we are becoming the American Indians who traded Manhattan for beads and trinkets. That is, we are trading our future for lead painted toys, poisoned dog food, and fossil fuels that exacerbate global warming.

Americans are a lot poorer today than they were when Bush took office seven years ago. The price of oil, for instance, has quintupled. And Bush’s massive $1.3 trillion dollar tax cuts exploded the deficit just before huge federal outlays were needed deal with the 9/11 attacks, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the rebuilding New Orleans following Katrina. The steep decline in the dollar is an indication that international lenders have lost confidence in the economic and strategic course charted by the Bush administration.

The fiscal stimulus the Bush administration is touting seems suspiciously like the surge in Iraq. That is, both are Band-Aids intended to buy the Bush administration time so that things don’t fall entirely apart until after they are out of office. Make no mistake, the gathering economic storm clouds are a consequence of Bush administration policies that have been bankrupting the country, both morally and fiscally. Tax cuts without fiscal discipline are the economic equivalent of steroids; they confer a temporary advantage, but they weaken the nation’s fiscal health over the long term. But hey, you can’t say you weren’t warned. After all, George W. Bush always said about his tax cuts, "It’s your money, you paid for it."

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William Kristol and Fairy Tales

William Kristol is to serious political commentary what Liberace is to classical music; sure, he's got some talent, but the closer you listen to him the worse he sounds. Kristol, of course, has been one of the most indefatigable cheerleaders for the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. Recently, he has taken to chastising leading Democrats for opposing the so-called surge, contending that Bush’s decision to increase the number of troops in Baghdad was an act of great political courage that has turned the tide in Iraq.

As someone who opposed the war – but after much agonizing reluctantly concluded that the surge was probably the best of our really bad options – I am deeply skeptical of Kristol’s glib assessment that the surge is in the process of being vindicated. Put simply, the surge has bought the Bush administration some valuable time, but the underlying conditions in Iraq remain anything but conducive to a national reconciliation.

The inherently limited duration of the surge has brought a short-term reduction in violence, but there are numerous reasons to believe the tactical momentum General Petraeus has achieved will prove to be something of a mirage. For one thing, nearly every force allied against the United States – from Sadr’s militia to al-Qaeda in Iraq – has an incentive to lay low before the U.S. is forced to reduce troop levels sometime later in 2008. Second, The Sunni militias we are arming to fight al-Qaeda now may turn their weapons against the Iraqi government later. And third, so long as corruption remains rampant, and the disbursement of political power and Iraqi oil revenues is based on tribal affiliations, then Iraq is likely to remain a dysfunctional state. U.S. troops, in short, are likely to be tied down in Iraq for decades in order to prevent the country from disintegrating into a Hobbesian nightmare.

Kristol chides Democrats for failing to "celebrate" progress in Iraq. I have to say I find Kristol’s snide obtuseness here morally repugnant. Four million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes, between 160,000 and 600,000 Iraqis have been killed, and "success" has been defined down so much that achieving it may mean little more than mitigating the threats unleashed by the invasion and botched occupation itself. Put simply, Kristol resembles nothing so much as an analyst who hyped Enron’s stock and then cleared his conscience by recommending investors could recoup their losses by selling their certificates on e-Bay.

Here, it is worth remembering that invading and occupying Iraq has not advanced America’s strategic interests. On the contrary, morally, fiscally, and militarily the occupation has been a catastrophe that has isolated, drained, divided, and diverted the United States in ways that have diminished its capacity to respond to other vital challenges. For instance, it has impeded our efforts to capture or kill bin Laden, which would have been a surefire way of delivering a knockout blow to al-Qaeda. Instead, the Bush administration led America astray with its quixotic fairly tale of turning Iraq into a beacon of democracy that would supposedly inspire a regional transformation in the Middle East).

Bush has bet not only his legacy on succeeding in Iraq, but also America’s future. The emergence of democracy, however, takes at minimum a generation, but by that time the nuclear genie may be out of the bottle as Islamic extremists based in Pakistan, Europe, or even the United States may have already detonated a WMD in a major American city. The enormous resources in blood and treasure America invested in Iraq may easily come to naught overnight. The historian Arnold Toynbee would have recognized the folly of the Bush administration’s faith-based foreign policy. After all, as he observed societies that reform themselves are more apt to succeed than societies that attempt to reform the rest of the world. If the past is prologue, Cassandra’s pessimism will prove more prophetic than the Pollyannaish fairy tale that that the Neocons like Kristol sold Bush on.

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Hillary Clinton's Crocodile Tears?

Hillary Clinton’s voice usually has all the warmth and humanness of a computer-generated telemarketer. Her halting cadence, monotonous tone, and bland delivery remind me of the pod people in the sci-fi classic, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. As much as I detest George W. Bush, and everything his administration stands for, I’m not sure I’m ready to vote for someone who acts like a Queen Bee. I can deal with Alpha Males, but Hillary’s stinging stares and venomous glares against her campaign rivals make them appear like male drones about to be devoured.

Hillary’s tears certainly stung Obama’s chances in New Hampshire. But was Hillary’s misty-eyed emotional display spontaneous or a carefully choreographed political calculation? Her words certainly seemed finely calibrated to appeal to a demographic that would prove crucial to her victory, namely young, single working mothers. For instance, Hillary expressed her presidential aspiration in terms any waitress, hygienist, or sales clerk could identify. "It’s not easy," Hillary began, "but some of us put ourselves out there everyday . . . against great odds . . . because we care about our country, each one of us."

Substitute the word "family" for "country" and many single moms could imagine themselves saying exactly the same thing. Hillary’s masterstroke was to frame her campaign in the political arena as the same kind of struggle working women face everyday. She then added a clever coda: "Some of us are right, and some of her wrong. Some of are ready, and some of us not." Ironically, her presumptuous catchphrase, "Some of us are right, some of us are wrong," is nothing but a kinder, gentler version of Bush’s Manichean slogan (i.e., "you are either with us or against us").

Was Nixon’s "Checkers Speech" authentic or contrived? In a figure as complex as Nixon it may have been both. Perhaps it doesn’t matter if Hillary’s campaign-saving emotional display was spontaneous or not, it was effective political theatre in a realm where everyone is an actor to some extent. A lot of voters clearly found Hillary’s emotional display refreshing, and the candidate clearly believes she has found her voice. But it says something about the electorate that what Hillary said was far less decisive than how she said it. After all, when it came to the Iraq War some of us (including Obama) were right, and Hillary was wrong.

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Is it Rational to Hate Bush?

I dislike virtually everything about Bush’s presidency. I’d use the word detest, but then I might be accused by Bush apologists (like the imbecilic Fred Barnes) of harboring an irrational hatred of Bush. But is it really irrational to hate an arrogant and incompetent buffoon who has precipitated America’s precipitous national decline? In other words, is Bush hatred an entirely rational response the unfolding disaster that is the Bush administration?

Anger is an entirely appropriate response to persons who selfishly or thoughtlessly threatens or harms our interests. If someone stole and crashed your car you’d have every right to be livid with them. Likewise, the majority of Americans and Floridians who cast their ballots for the eminently competent Al Gore had every right to be infuriated by the legal shenanigans and sophistry that Bush used to steal the 2000 election.

The blatant dishonesty the Bush campaign used to circumvent the electorate made a mockery of the law. Katherine Harris certified Bush’s 536-vote margin of victory, but that number is about as credible as an Enron balance sheet certified by accounting firm Arthur Anderson.

Bush vs. Gore will probably age about as well as Norma Desmond (or Britney Spears for that matter). Justice John Paul Stevens was eloquent and prescient when he wrote in dissent that the American public and the rule of law would be the biggest losers from the majority’s improvident decision. Indeed, the legal machination employed to seize the election would turn out to be a prelude to the Constitutional and executive abuses that have characterized Bush’s dismal tenure.

All the Alice in Wonderland reasoning Bush honed during the Florida fiasco would be put to use to sell the Iraq War, Bush’s illegal wiretapping program, and the administration’s efforts to scuttle the Geneva Conventions. The false-choices, half-truths, bait-and-switches, and scare tactics that are Bush’s modus operandi have proven to be the political equivalent of steroids; they confer a temporary advantage, but ultimately they have weakened the body politic.

The aforementioned tactics, of course, are an affront to reason that Bush and his minions aimed at the lowest common denominator. The Iraq War was supposed to be a cakewalk that would pay for itself, but now forecasters see the cumulative costs of the Iraq catastrophe topping $3 trillion dollars. Bush didn’t raise taxes to pay for the war, of course. Rather, he pushed through the largest tax-cut in history while VP Dick Cheney insisted "deficits don’t matter." The VP is right, of course, as long as China and other foreign creditors are willing to lend Americans money so we can afford oil prices that are going through the stratosphere.

The Bush administration’s debt-fueled growth is the economic equivalent of taking steroids to bulk up; performance heats up over the short term, but the system rots from within over the long-term. The sinking dollar, the dismal housing market, and debt-soaked consumers are an axis-of-ills that are symptomatic of Bush’s snake oil prescription of paying for everything with tax cuts.

Bush’s credibility is more shot full of holes than even Dick Cheney’s hunting partner, Harry Whittington. Americans have every right to be furious with the mixture of arrogance and ineptitude Bush has displayed. To paraphrase Mark Twain, its not what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so that leads to disaster.
Bush has ignored real threats (intelligence warnings prior to 9/11 and global warming, for instance) while overacting to imaginary threats (the hype over Saddam’s phantom WMD that led to an unnecessary war). He ignores evidence he doesn’t like and cherry picks evidence to suit his ideological preconceptions. He has circumvented rational decision-making procedures, relying heavily on his gut instincts, which is a deeply irrational way to govern.

Those of us who have pointed out Bush’s fallacious rhetoric and reasoning from the get go have had to endure insults from the legion of half-wits that were taken in by Bush’s hucksterism. It’s not those who disdain Bush that are being proven wrong, but those who aided, abetted, and enabled his disastrous administration.

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Bush and the Assasination of Benazir Bhutto

George W. Bush has a habit of putting all his eggs in one basket before splattering them on the sidewalk when he trips up. The assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto is the latest foreign policy mess that has the administration scrambling to cope with its disastrous decisions and bad judgement.

It took the Bush administration roughly a year to broker a power sharing deal between Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf and Bhutto, but it only took al-Qaeda (or whatever extremist elements were responsible) minutes to effectively derail the Bush administration’s democratization efforts for Pakistan.

The administration’s support for the progressive and pro-Western Bhutto, of course, made sense. The former Prime Minister was ousted on corruption charges more than a decade ago, but most observers believe her relatively secular PPP party represented the best hope for a country being torn apart by religious extremism. There is little doubt that Bhutto was willing to do something Musharraf has not, namely take on the Taliban and al-Qaeda elements that are turning Pakistan into a failed state and the new headquarters of al-Qaeda’s international efforts.

Bush’s blunder has been in making General Musharraf the linchpin of the administration’s efforts to combat Islamic extremism in Pakistan. Since 9/11, the United States has poured more than $10 billion into Pakistan with virtually nothing to show for it. Indeed, Musharraf will be blamed for Bhutto’s death whether he had anything to do with it or not. The Bush administration has placed the United States in the unenviable position of being associated with a dictator who disbanded an independent judiciary, cracked down on a free press, instituted martial law, and arrested political opponents.

Musharraf has never been more loathed, nor has his grip on power ever been shakier. By effectively outsourcing the hunt for bin Laden to Musharraf the Bush administration has gotten the worst of all worlds: 1) ineffectual efforts against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan and 2) to the extent that we have supported an unpopular dictator we have no broad base of support among the Pakistani people.

Experts on Pakistan agree that Musharraf has played Bush for a fool. Clearly, the Bush administration’s strategy for Pakistan is in shambles. But Bush’s misjudgment about Musharraf is just the latest in a serial of errors made by our incompetent "commander-in-chief." Among Bush’s blunders are: the failure to heed urgent warnings about the 9/11 attacks, the decision to go after Saddam Hussein rather than 9/11 mastermind Osama bin laden, the botched occupation of Iraq, the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, and more recently the administration’s failure to recognize that Iran had suspended its military nuclear program.

Bush and Musharraf have a lot in common. Both came to power in coups, both act as if they are above the law, and both have completely lost credibility. We are witnessing a failed presidency of monumental proportions.

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Charles Krauthammer: Mission Accomplished II

The physicist Wolfgang Pauli once remarked to a colleague about the lecture they were attending, noting that the speaker was so off the mark that "he isn't even wrong." I often have the same feeling reading Charles Krauthammer’s mediocre missives in the Washington Post. According to Krauthammer, Iraq is on the verge of turning out as a major strategic accomplishment for the United States. Before Krauthammer declares Mission Accomplished II, however, there are some inconvenient facts he needs to reckon with.

Krauthammer argues that an enduring U.S. military presence in Iraq will insure America has a critical ally in the heart of the Middle East. Neither the American people nor the Iraqis have signed on to the idea having permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. If the heavily fortified bunker complex that is the Green Zone is any indication, then America’s presence will be like Fort Apache in injun territory – i.e., an unwelcome presence that continues to fuel extremist resentment against what the jihadists view as an imperial and infidel occupation. Put simply, a large American footprint in Iraq is more likely to inspire extremism than defuse it.

General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency strategy is certainly a marked improvement over what came before. However, the welcome reduction in violence probably has much to do with the fact that many of the factions in Iraq are simply waiting the Americans out. They know, for instance, that the surge is temporary and that the Bush administration’s days are numbered. As one Iraqi put it, the current lull in violence is part of the "great deception" as the various Iraq militias prepare for the day when the United States is forced to scale back forces. Iraqis various factions, after all, would rather fight one another tomorrow than take on American firepower today.

What are the prospects for a political reconciliation in Iraq? The whole point of the surge, after all, was to buy time for the various factions to hammer out oil revenue sharing agreements and the like. In fact, pervasive corruption and black market activity – not to mention the reality that petro-politics in the Middle East is a invariably a zero-sum game – makes it highly unlikely that the various factions can arrive at a sustainable political settlement. Presently, the U.S. military is buying off Iraq’s private militias (convincing them it is better to take our money than fight us), but unless the Bush administration can manage a breakthrough on the political front this approach is likely to prove ephemeral.

The Iraq war must be understood in the context of our larger strategic interests. It has hampered our efforts in Afghanistan, diverted resources from capturing or killing bin Laden, worked to the advantage of America’s chief adversary in the region (Iran), and radicalized a new generation of anti-American extremists. The invasion of Iraq has also decimated America’s credibility, leaving it isolated and drained at a time when China appears on a trajectory to eclipse the United States within the next several decades. The extraordinary costs of the whole enterprise (by some estimates the invasion will cost each American $9,250 by the end of the decade), coupled with a very uncertain potential payoff (a less radicalized Arab world), make the whole venture seem about as sensible as buying Lotto tickets to avoid foreclosing on a mortgage one can’t afford.

The historian Arnold Toynbee observed that societies that remake themselves are more apt to succeed than societies that attempt to remake the rest of the world. Would the United States be better off investing in its own infrastructure and the energy efficiencies and alternative fuels of the future than pouring money into Iraq? We have truly outsourced our future. Of course, neoconservatives like Krauthammer will never admit just how far off the mark they’ve been all along.

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Bush's Recession?

The Iraq War has moved off the headlines, but the costs of the war continue to rise. According to Congressperson Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) each and every American citizen is responsible for forking over $4, 125 to cover the cost of what has thus far been the biggest strategic blunder in American foreign policy since the Vietnam War. That figure, incidentally, is expected to rise to $ 9,250 by the end of the decade.

Bush, of course, cut taxes while launching three unfinished wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, and the War on Terror). He also failed to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax (ATM), which will mean many ordinary taxpayers will soon face steep increases in their tax bill. That’s because ATM was never indexed for inflation, thus tax rates meant for the wealthy decades ago will now snare decidedly middle class earners.

The value of the dollar has been in steep decline, the price of oil is at or near an all-time high, inflation is on the rise, home prices are as depressed as Bush’s approval ratings, and even the president acknowledges there are storm clouds on the economic horizon. Here’s a prediction for you: the Bush Recession will be one of the major stories of 2008. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Indeed, as Bush himself said when selling his snake oil tax cuts, "It’s your money, you paid for it." Bush only got the verb tense wrong.

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"Thank God Bush is President" Did God Want Bush to be President?

"Thank God George W. Bush is President." As a political satirist, I have a special license to spout utter nonsense like this. After all, saying something patently ridiculous can inspire laughter at the pompous fools that govern us. There are however, a small number of congenitally serious people who really do thank God that Bush is in the Oval Office. Conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, for instance, recently wrote a tribute to Bush’s tenacity, which he claims will be the saving grace of his presidency. When a democratic Iraq finally takes root in the Middle East, and madrassahs are replaced by American style malls (minus the serial shooters, of course), then history will vindicate Bush’s obstinacy.

Iraq may or may not muddle through to a tolerable outcome, but given Bush’s extraordinary incompetent handling of the invasion and occupation there is little reason he should get credit if Iraq manages to turn out OK thirty years from now. Future administrations and the Iraqi people may manage turn Iraq into a success, if so the credit should be theirs not Bush’s.

We are seven years into the Bush administration, and virtually all the evidence indicates that Bush’s tenure has been a catastrophe. First and foremost, Bush has no credibility. The American people do not believe what Bush tells them, nor do they think he is up to the job.

Second, Bush surrounded himself with some of the most incompetent public officials that ever staffed an administration, i.e., Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleezza and Michael Brown, to name just a few.

Third, Bush’s clueless, lackadaisical, and inept response to Katrina revealed what a shallow character he really is.

Fourth, to date Iraq is greatest strategic blunder in American foreign policy since the Vietnam War. Put simply, it has empowered our adversaries – most notably Iran and al-Qaeda – while leaving the U.S. isolated and drained.

Fifth, the torture and abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have decimated America’s moral authority, which has led to an unprecedented decline in American power and prestige.

Sixth, the Bush administration’s decision to scrap the Kyoto treaty and ignore global warming is proving to one of the most fateful and unwise decisions it ever made (and that is saying a lot). Put simply, pouring blood and treasure into Iraq (while America’s infrastructure is crumbling at home) is going to look awful foolish if the scientists in the reality-based community are right about the ecological challenges we’re going to face in the future as a result of climate change.

Seventh, Bush’s fiscal stewardship – until recently Bush’s handling of the economy was considered to be one of the few bright spots of his presidency – appears poised to sink the American ship of state in a sea of bad debt. The sinking dollar, high oil prices, the credit crunch, inflation, and ballooning mortgage rates are going to leave Americans feeling a lot poorer in what shaping up as an election year recession.

Cutting taxes while greatly increasing the size of the federal government have put the United State behind the economic eight ball. Dick Cheney famously declared "deficits don’t matter," but many warned that all the Bush administration’s red ink would inevitably mean less credit available for private borrowers, higher interest rates, and inflationary pressures. Presently, we are approaching a perfect storm where the Fed will be caught in a double bind: forced to lower interests rates to avoid a recession, but lowering interest rates will feed inflation.

Of course, with all the bad debt out there, foreign lenders will eventually insist on higher interest rates, which will only increases the chances of a severe economic downturn. America is boxed in, with little margin for error when it comes to avoiding a rather nasty recession.

Bush’s policies have led directly and indirectly to the free fall of the dollar, higher oil prices, and the credit crisis. The value of the dollar is a reflection of investor confidence in the United States, which at the moment isn’t high. Rising energy prices, of course, are a function of supply and demand, but the Bush administration has done nothing to prepare the United States for the twilight of the hydrocarbon era. It may seem harder to pin the credit crisis on the Bush, but credit markets require an atmosphere of trust, which is not a quality the president and his administration has engendered.

Most controversial presidents have at least one significant foreign or domestic achievement. Bush has nada. Iraq is looking better, but chances are the various factions are just waiting us out till the surge has run its course and America is forced to draw down its forces next year. The way things are shaping up Bush will be forever associated with America’s precipitous economic, moral, and national decline. Sorry Dinesh, but the next time God wants someone to be president He (or She) should register to vote just like everyone else.

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To Torture, or not to Torture?

“A foolish consistency,” Emerson wrote, is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Emerson’s quote captures the important truth that there’s no single maxim, code, or moral formula for navigating life’s complexities. Sometimes bad actions lead to good outcomes. And good intentions sometimes breed disastrous outcomes. We live in a Shakespearean universe where even morality can be bad.

To torture, or not to torture a terrorist: that is the question. The answer is not as easy as it seems. Proponents of Bush’s harsh interrogation methods have argued that waterboarding suspected al-Qaeda suspects has saved lives, while opponents contend that sanctioning torture erodes America’s soul. Do both points of view have validity?

They do to CIA officer John Kiriakou, who believes that waterboarding Abu Zubaida broke up al-Qaeda plots, provided crucial insight into the terror group’s infrastructure, and indirectly helped lead to the capture of 9/11 mastermind Kahlid Sheik Mohammed.

But Kiriakou – who underwent waterboarding as part of his CIA training – has come to the conclusion that waterboarding is torture and that “Americans are better than that." Or at least they ought to be.

It would be easy to write Kiriakou off as a flip-flopper or man without firm moral convictions. On the contrary, the ability and willingness to hold two diametrically opposing views simultaneously (and to weigh and ponder the merits and demerits of both) is the mark of a rare intelligence. Kiriakou is no simple-minded moralist, an ideologue, or a zealot. His capacity to see both sides of the issue – and to be troubled by an either/or – is exactly the kind of person you’d hope to find tackling these concrete moral decisions.

I say this, as someone who believes the United States should take a firm stand against torture. Brutalizing victims has a way of dehumanizing the victim and the victimizer. If the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation methods were to become institutionalized, then I believe we would run the risk of inculcating a culture of sadism among America’s interrogators. History suggests that this would only fuel a vicious cycle of violence.

There are many other reasons for opposing torture: 1) to protect American service men an women from retaliatory treatment, 2) the fact that most counter terrorism experts tend to discount most information where torture is involved, 3) the culture of lawlessness that seems to flow from flouting traditional and international constraints on torture, and 4) to prevent the erosion of America’s moral authority, credibility, and soft power.

Statecraft is an art, not a science. Machiavelli recognized that sometimes a leader must break the law in order to preserve order or prevent a greater calamity. Occasionally, authorities responsible for public safety may have good reason to believe that torturing a suspect is the only way to get vital information. If an attack is prevented, then that should count as mitigating evidence at a trial that holds them to account. Public safety is important, but so are our ideals. If I were on a jury hearing the case of an agent who tortured someone to prevent an attack I’d have mixed feelings about finding them guilty. But morality is a pretty complex affair.

For an excellent overview of the issue see "Waterboarding Recounted" in the Washington Post."

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Top Ten Reasons it Would be Great to Have Bill Clinton in the White House Again

10) With Bill and Hillary occupying the White House, the warmongering right-wing nut cases will be forced to focus on regime change here at home rather than abroad.

9) A reality-based series based on Bill’s everyday life – you could call it Sex in High Places -- sure would beat watching reruns of Sex in the City.

8) Bill will put Dick Cheney’s secure location to better use.

7) Bubba's exploits, as documented in a much anticipated follow-up to the Starr Report, will allow me to spend less money every month on online porn.

6) I’d like to see Hillary use expanded executive authority to order the use of coercive interrogation techniques on Bill when he’s caught in the Oval Office broom closet with another White House intern.

5) Eight more years in the White House will allow Bill to screw the Republicans for a long time.

4) Two terms with Bubba won’t bother me since I have a v-chip installed in my TV.

3) Bill has super duper secret plan to change the national anthem to "I Feel Good" by James Brown.

2) After eight years of George Jr., I don’t care about honor and dignity in the Oval Office, I just want someone who knows what they are doing!

1) Hey, if you are a political satirist wouldn’t you want to put Falstaff and Lady Macbeth back on the pedestal of power, if only to get a second chance at knocking them off their perch.

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The Lessons of King Pyrrhus for Iraq

America’s predicament in Iraq reminds me of the story of King Pyrrhus, who upon receiving notice of his victory over the Romans replied, "one more victory such as this and I will be undone."

When it comes to the Iraq War, the United States may yet snatch a pyrrhic victory from the jaws of defeat. If Iraq somehow manages to muddle through to a halfway tolerable outcome it will be thanks to men like Maj. Gen (Ret.) John Batiste and Lt. Pete Hegseth, two veterans of the Iraq campaign with very different views regarding the wisdom of the war, but who have nevertheless forged common ground regarding the course they believe America needs to take in order to salvage our mission. As a matter of making the best of a bad situation, Batiste and Hegseth manage to achieve the following: 1) they identify key American interests that hinge on the outcome of the Iraq War, 2) they provide a plausible way forward, and 3) their suggestions were formed with the intention of enlisting bi-partisan cooperation and forging a national consensus.

Batiste and Hegseth identify five tenets they believe most Americans should accept:

1) America must win the fight against Islamic extremists
2) Iraq is central to this fight
3) The counter-insurgency strategy of General Petraeus is the correct one for Iraq
4) Iran cannot be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.
5) Our military capacities must match our national strategy.

Batiste and Hegseth characterize our struggle against the forces of Islamic extremism as the Long War. And they rightly lament the fact that the entire burden for this campaign falls disproportionately on the less than one percent of the population that makes up the U.S. military. They conclude that, "We need a regional and global strategy to defeat worldwide Islamic extremism to ensure a safer world today and for future generations."

There is much to recommend in the assessment of Batiste and Hegseth, and much that is overlooked. They claim that Iraq is central to fight against Islamic extremism, but this ignores the fact that geography is largely irrelevant when your are dealing with a global ideology. While the United States has been slogging it out in Iraq, with little to show for it, al-Qaeda has turned the tribal areas in Pakistan into the headquarters of its jihadist movement. Put simply, the central assumption that has guided the Bush administration’s counter terrorism strategy – that a pro-Western government in Iraq would take the wind out of al-Qaeda’s sails – is fundamentally flawed.

Concomitantly, it is a perverse irony that the invasion of Iraq has worked to the advantage of Iran, greatly complicating America’s ability to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. In effect, America’s troops in Iraq are hostages; they are convenient targets for Iranian terror cells should the U.S. launch pre-emptive strikes against Iran.

The large-scale presence of American troops in Iraq also serves bin Laden’s strategy, which seeks to bleed America economically and militarily. Will America’s security interests be served by having a long-term military presence in Iraq in the form of permanent bases? The Bush administration has never given the public a chance to weigh in on this matter, yet this decision may have profound implications for our national security.

Should the United States continue to bet its future on the outcome in Iraq? This is a question that may be decided by unforeseen variables – an outbreak of cholera in Baghdad, a coup that brings down Iraq’s feeble government, or an event half-way around the world that suddenly challenges America’s already overstrained military. To put it bluntly, Iraq is at best a high-cost/low return proposition at this stage.

What would I offer as an alternative to Batiste and Hegseth’s five tenets? I’d suggest:

1)America’s national security depends on achieving energy security – i.e. developing the alternative fuels and energy efficiencies that would make the United States the world leader of the post-hydrocarbon era.

2) A concerted effort to bring down the price of oil through a carbon tax would reverse the huge transfer of wealth taking place, which is impoverishing American consumers and enriching many of America’s adversaries.

3)Reclaim the moral high ground by renouncing torture and extra-legal detentions.

4) Call for universal national service. Those who object to military service should be allowed to serve their country in other duties.

5) Recognize that the struggle against Islamic extremism is primarily ideological and that defeating it will require American ingenuity, consensus building, and bi-partisanship (all traits sorely lacking in the Bush administration).

Check out the views of Batiste and Hegseth for yourself in their Washington Post Op-Ed "How to Win The War."

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Bush's Credibility

Bush’s credibility has sunk about as low as Britney Spears' career. In a bombshell (no pun intended), that effectively preempts the administration’s plans to launch a preemptive strike against Iran, America’s intelligence community released its conclusion that Iran suspended its military nuclear program sometime in 2003. The Bush administration was aware of this assessment, yet the president continued to insist that Iran was risking WWIII if it didn’t suspend its military nuclear program. Thus, the White House was forced into to the embarrassing position of having to claim: 1) the president wasn’t aware of the National Intelligence Estimate widely circulating within his own administration, or 2) acknowledge that Bush was lying (once again) to the American people. As Yogi Berra would say, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”

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Stem Cells, the Soul, and the Bush Administration's Sophistry

Philosophers from the Middle Ages used to debate questions like: How many angels can fit on the tip of a pin? They also entertained dilemmas such as: At what point during a pregnancy is the immortal soul infused with its temporal body? The latter question posed no shortage paradoxes. For instance, would the soul of a fetus that died before birth make it to heaven? After all, church doctrine held that baptism was a prerequisite entering the pearly gates.

Serious Christian philosophers, such as Thomas Aquinas, believed that each individual soul was created by God, but that it was only some months after conception that the material body of the fetus was developed enough to be co joined with the soul. Many would take issue with Aquinas, of course, arguing that the moment of conception is the point where soul and body are joined. The only problem with both of these views, however, is that they depend on a dualistic metaphysics that no longer has much scientific or philosophical credibility. To put it bluntly, the idea that a human being is a composite consisting of an immaterial soul and a material body is no more tenable than the idea that the earth is flat.

To make my point clearer consider the case of phlogiston, hypothetical substance pre-modern "scientists" invented to explain why a candle goes out when a glass covers it. These ancient thinkers believed that every flame emitted an invisible and undetectable substance called phlogiston. When a candle was covered by a glass, these thinkers reckoned, the flame would extinguish itself after a matter of moments when there was no more room under the glass for the flame to release additional phlogiston. Needless to say, with Lavosier’s discovery of oxygen in 1778, the entire rationale for phlogiston evaporated. Today, most neuroscientists and philosophers find the idea of a soul is about as useful to their work as the concept of phlogiston is to a modern chemist.

Those on the religious right who oppose stem cell research involving human embryos tacitly rely on the outmoded concept of the soul as an immaterial substance. Invoking cliches like "the sanctity of life" to defend the inalienable rights of an embryo is more effective rhetorically than factually. An embryo is not a person, anymore than a recipe is a soufflé.

Nevertheless, embryos can and should be treated with respect because under the right conditions they could develop into persons. Embryos are like seeds. But just as crushing an acorn is not the same as cutting down an oak tree, so discarding an embryo is not the same thing as killing a person. After all, few of us would want to see a doctor or a nurse at a fertility clinic charged with negligent homicide if they inadvertently mishandled a frozen embryo in a way that ended its viability.

Those who oppose federal funding for research involving embryonic stem cells have succeeded in erecting a mountain of impediments to medical research out of a moral molehill. Frozen embryos are routinely discarded by fertilization clinics as a byproduct of helping infertile couples have children, but Bush’s stem cell policy does nothing to "save" these embryos (and no one seems to be clamoring for a ban on in vitro fertilization).

An embryo is not a person. It is estimated that as many as seventy-five percent of embryos spontaneously abort; and in most cases a woman never even knows she was pregnant. Further, two weeks after the supposedly magic "moment of conception" (its actually a biological process that takes hours) a single embryo can begin a process that leads to twins. In other words, it makes little sense to think of an embryo in its earliest stages as an individual.

Stem cell research is filled with promise and fraught with peril. The breakthrough that involves turning skin cells into pluripotent stem cells (cells that could potentially grow into any organ or body tissue) seemingly overcomes a supposed moral issue, but the dilemma here was always more political than ethical.

For a good overview and analysis of this issue see "Standing in the Way of Stem Cell Research" in the Washington Post by Alan Leshner and James Thomson.

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Fear vs. Hope and the Renewal of America

Umberto Ecco once said, "the Devil is faith without a smile. The true lover of mankind endeavors to make the Truth laugh." Ecco’s thought, the more I think about it, is an antidote to our increasingly dour political times. Fear mongers dominate the political landscape, pandering to the irrationality of the lowest common denominator in ways that threaten to take the United States back to the dark ages. Fear of immigrants, fear of terrorists, and fear the Other are easily exploited in an insecure and therefore angry age.

The fulminators are not just political figures. Lou Dobbs has revived his flailing career by flogging "illegal" immigrants 24/7. Bill O’Reilly scapegoats secularists, leftists, academics, media elites, and Hollywood celebrities. Broadcasters and guests ranting against what they dislike dominate much of our airwaves.

There has always been a paranoid streak in the American psyche. The Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and more recently the Bush administration’s largely irrational response to 9/11.

A rational response to the 9/11 attacks would have included the implementation of a comprehensive national energy strategy aimed at reducing America’s dangerous reliance on Middle Eastern oil. Presently, with oil hovering at the $100 mark, the Bush administration is presiding over the largest transfer of wealth in history as Western consumers fill the coffers of autocratic petro states (like Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela) every time they fill their tanks. In a perverse way, U.S. consumers are fueling Anti-American forces, jihadist causes, and global warming all at the same time.

The high price of oil hurts America’s economy and it even hampers the Bush administration’s dubious democratization efforts in the Middle East. For instance, hard-liners in Iran would have a much harder time extending their influence through militias in Iraq (or terror organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah) if the price of petroleum were significantly lower. And clearly, the failure of U.S. automakers to adopt higher fuel efficiency standards has deleterious effect on their competitiveness.

Tapping American ingenuity to develop the alternative fuels and energy efficiency technologies of the future could revitalize America’s manufacturing sector, strike a blow against Islamic extremism, and reduce global warming. This kind of imaginative thinking would shift the focus away from the bogeymen demagogues like to dangle before the public in order to enhance their ratings and/or political prospects. Instead, America’s energies could be directed towards creating the new industries, technologies, and ecological practices that could renew America’s spirit.

For the last seven years the United States has been governed by fear. It is simply a travesty that America is now identified with water boarding, indefinite detentions, and a crusade (including an army of private mercenaries) to convert the Middle East. In many respects, it seems the United States has reverted to the Middle Ages.

Fear and anger corrode the soul because they tend to exclude hope and courage. The Bush administration has undeniably exploited fear for political gain, but its policies are actually eroding America’s economic and national security. The truth is that people rarely thrive where fear reigns.

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Karl Rove Rewriting History

The Bush administration’s spends so much time rewriting history that I’m afraid they’ll run out of ink before they run out of lies. The latest redaction comes from Karl Rove, the president’s former chief political strategist, who told interviewer Charlie Rose that the great untold story of the Iraq War was how the Democratic Congress railroaded the country to war. That’s right. Rove implied that Congress -- not president Bush -- was the driving force that was responsible for taking the United States into Iraq. If only Congress hadn’t rushed the vote ahead of the 2002 mid-term elections, then we might have had time to allow the inspections to work, or assemble a true international coalition to deal with Saddam.

Rove’s argument is a bit like a drunk who convinces you he’s sober, but when totals your car he blames you for giving him the keys in the first place. It was pretty sickening to see the Republican National Committee run war-themed ads, effectively taunting the Democrats with the political consequences of voting to leave Saddam in power. But it is downright nauseating to see a weasel like Rove try and absolve the Bush administration for making the worst foreign policy decision in American history by running away from the historical record. I don’t know if Rove believes his own spin – a pretty scary thought – but Rove’s hopes for a permanent Republican majority are getting buried by an avalanche of lies.

Even Rove's colleagues seem taken aback by his sel-serving interpretation of history. As reported in The Washington Post, former Bush chief-of-staff, Andy Card, suggested that "Rove's brain gets ahead of his mouth." Well, considering the fact that Rove was "Bush's Brain" that's a disquieting thought.

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Is Bush’s Stem Cell Policy Vindicated?

Recently, scientists discovered a method of coaxing ordinary skin cells into becoming stem cells, thus avoiding the ethical quandary of having to harvest stem cells from embryos. Conservative commentators have seized on the apparent breakthrough to argue Bush’s stem cell policy – which denied federal funding for stem cell research derived from human embryos – has been vindicated. Indeed, Charles Krauthammer hyperventilates that "the embryonic stem cell debate is over. The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president -- so vilified for a moral stance -- been so thoroughly vindicated."

Not so fast. Conservative pundits have been taking a licking on issues like global warming, Iraq, and Bush’s counter terrorism strategy so it’s little wonder that they’d like to turn the tables for once and insist the "debate is over." A closer look at the issue, however, reveals that Bush’s stem cell stance yielded few, if any, genuine moral benefits. Indeed, the supposed "moral clarity" Bush exercised in delineating the bright red line around "human embryos" had far more to do with abortion politics than any ethically or scientifically defensible principle. To put it simply, Bush’s policy did not save lives or uphold the sanctity of life. But curtailing federal funding for stem cell lines created from human embryos will have an ongoing pernicious effect in so far as federal dollars and ethical oversight go hand in hand. Let me explain.

At the crux of the matter is the question: is a human embryo a person? The term "human embryo" is at least somewhat loaded in so far as it implies that an embryo meets the criteria to count as an individual. It does not, for this reason: as late as two weeks after conception a single embryo can spontaneously split in two and begin developing as twins. Simply put, individuality, personhood, and the soul are not concepts that can be appropriately applied at an embryo’s earliest stages. This point is reinforced by the fact that as many as 75% of fertilized embryos spontaneously abort before implanting. Nature is simply wasteful and indifferent in the extreme.

Right-to-life advocates, however, are wedded to the doctrine that life begins at conception. This view is often attended by wooly metaphysical dogma about the infusion of soul and body taking place at conception. This view, of course, is difficult to square with the facts cited above (the vast majority of embryos spontaneously abort and a single embryo can spontaneously become twins two weeks after conception).

It doesn’t follow from this, however, that the moral value of an embryo is nil. Given the right circumstances an embryo has the potential to become a human being. Thus, when we speak of a "human embryo" we should remember that we are using that designation primarily to refer to the genetic material as being distinct from that of other species, but we are not referring to a distinct individual that has the moral status of a human person. If we were, then it would be wrong to create surplus embryos to help infertile couples have children. But even most on the religious right aren’t too keen on creating a fuss over surplus embryos created as a byproduct of helping infertile couples have children.

Nevertheless, conservative pundits use the term "human embryo" as a rhetorical sleight of hand, subtly implying each and every embryo is a unique human being. But deep down, most serious people don’t believe this because, or there would be calls to ban in vitro fertilization and outlaw privately funded embryonic stem cell research. As it stands, Bush’s policy does not prohibit embryonic stem cell research that is privately funded. Since federal funding invariably entails greater ethical oversight, however, Bush’s policy actually creates the worst of all possible worlds; less dollars where they are needed and less oversight where it is needed.

The discovery that scientists can coax ordinary skin cells into becoming stem cells is a remarkable breakthrough. The ability to bypass even a perceived ethical quandary is welcome, but it would be mistaken and way premature to insist that this new procedure vindicates Bush’s decision, it does not. Bush’s decision, and the reasoning behind it, deserve respect as a serious effort to grapple with profound and difficult questions. The approach of countries like Great Britain, however, has been even more high-minded and serious because the debate there has not been distorted by abortion politics. Those crowing about Bush stem cell policy being vindicated should be a little way of declaring "mission accomplished."

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Bush Authorizes Secret Program to Torture Language

President Bush has signed a super-secret executive order that authorizes him, in his role as commander-in-chief, to torture the any member of the Axis-of-Information (language, reason, or truth) without court approval. Previously, according to long-standing American tradition, any president who wanted to stretch language to the breaking point, douse the truth, or shock reason had to go before a special magistrate in order obtain a writ of verbias corpus.

Most Americans would probably be surprised to learn that beneath the White House bunker is a secret chamber where men in black hoods use sharp instruments to chop words, dissect logic, and mince meaning. As one former linguistic inquisitor put it: “We have the tools to make language talk. We may have to get a little rough, but we’ll get those damn words to open up. When we’re through with them, they’ll tell us everything we want to hear.”

The Department of Informational Conformity and Kompliance (DICK), which was set up during the last days of the Nixon Administration by a zealous up-and-comer, remains one of the most secretive and sensitive institutions in the bowels of the government. Most officials refuse to confirm or deny its existence, but lawyers for Abdul Hominem, a French national of Arab descent, who was recently held incommunicado in DICK’s chambers for two years, and released only after successfully complying with the Bush Administration’s “Don’t talk, don’t torture*” program, has come forward to expose horrific examples linguistic abuse.

“They’re bending logic like a pretzel, meaning has been turned inside out, and they’ve had common sense tied up without a let up for more than six years. They picked me [A. Hominem] up around election time and flailed me until I was of no use to them anymore. I was putty in their hands. But you should have seen what they did with a couple of guys nicknamed Bait & Switch. They roughed them up so bad they switched sides and are now working for the administration. Talk about flip-floppers. One thing I know for sure, they [the administration] are not interested in the truth.”

President Bush has pointedly maintained that the United States adheres strictly to the Semantics Convention. But after signing Merriam-Webster, legislation that specifically bans tortured syntax, the president issued a signing statement, then winked, and said, “A word means just what the commander-in-chief says it means. Nothing more. Nothing less.” The so-called Humpty Dumpty clause, as critics are calling it, would allow Bush to continue mangling the English language with impunity. As noted linguist and language rights activist Nim Chimpsky puts it, “the Bush Administration War on Language metaphor has led to us an axis-of-clichés – tautologies, non-sequitars, and fallacies – whereby language itself is used to strangle thought.”

President Bush, however, steadfastly insists that he will leave “no slogan behind” on the battlefield of ideas. “Some say the War on Words is just a metaphor. They believe that if we cut and run the axis-of-evil – the grammarians, copy-editors, and smart-alecky satirists -- would leave us plain-speaking, hackneyed, cliché loving Americas alone. They would not; they would follow us home, both literally and figuratively. Which is why I made the decision to fight language abroad, in the realm of thought, rather than here at home, the land of truisms and platitudes. We shall fight to the last cliché.”

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Bush vs. Scott McClellan

It is one of life’s ironies that the so-called “value voters” – the evangelicals and Christian conservatives from the religious right -- were instrumental in installing a president (George W. Bush) who tortures the truth at every opportunity. That Bush is a prevaricator par excellence is not even disputable. His misrule has been predicated on lies, spin, and the subversion of the reality-based community. For instance, the Bush administration spun fabricated evidence to sell the Iraq War, while whitewashing scientific evidence that contradicted their stance on global warming. The end result is an ideological bubble that has burst in the public’s face. One victim of Bush’s mendacity is poor little Scott McClellan, the president’s hapless former press secretary who was asked to disseminate falsehoods on his boss’s behalf. As McClellan explains:

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the President himself."

McClellan, of course, is referring to his role in vouching for the veracity of Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, effectively telling the public – falsely – that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with leaking the name of Valerie Plame Wilson after her husband, Joseph Wilson, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times debunking a central argument in the Bush administration’s rationale for invading Iraq – namely that Saddam was allegedly trying to purchase uranium from Niger.

The ferociousness of the administration’s counterattack is startling even by the standards of Bush/Cheney. But there were good reason why the vice-president’s office, in particular, was so intent on attacking Wilson in a way that would send a message to other potential critics and whistleblowers. As Crain Unger reports in his new book, The Fall of the House of Bush, there is more than a little circumstantial evidence to suggest that some key neoconservative figures may have been involved in a 1999 burglary at the Nigerian embassy in Italy.

The break-in, as it happens, was the source of the forged documents that Bush later cited in his infamous State of the Union Address (the sixteen words about Saddam allegedly trying to acquire uranium from Africa). However, by the time of Bush’s 2002 State of the Union, the intelligence community (and much of the administration) recognized that the documents in question were dubious, yet the words were actually re-inserted in the president’s speech!

Was Bush in the dark while Cheney pulled the strings? Did the neoconservatives in the VP’s office fear Congressional, media, or public scrutiny might reveal that key neocon figures might be connected to the forged documents. It is clear that Libby’s lies regarding the Plame leak were not just much ado about nothing; they were a smokescreen intended to protect higher ups and perhaps a conspiracy that brought the country to war by deliberately providing Congress and the American people with false intelligence. Instead of getting to the bottom of the leak, as Bush promised, he had his press secretary lie to the American people and then he commuted the sentence of a convicted perjurer. Well, I guess the Libby case proves that telling the truth isn’t always necessary to set you free.

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Is Bush's Surge Vindicated?

Recently, Bush’s supporters have been chirping that the president’s troop surge into Baghdad has been vindicated because violence in Iraq is in a downward trend. The prospect of a full-scale civil war seems to have abated, and there are encouraging signs that al-Qaeda in Iraq is in retreat. These are welcome tactical developments, but using words like “success” or “victory” would be wholly inappropriate in the context of a war that has otherwise been a strategic and moral calamity for the United States.

For the religious right, however, the campaign in Iraq is not just the central front in the war on terror, but also the central front in a cultural and political crusade to wrest control of the national narrative from the secular left. In other words, the religious right desperately wants to claim some sort of victory in Iraq so that they can declare that God and the tide of history are on their side. When things looked hopeless in Iraq the right insisted that it would be some decades before Bush is vindicated. But when a few encouraging developments materialize the right immediately claims vindication and insists that opponents of the war are in denial.

In reality, the war in Iraq has greatly complicated and compounded the challenges the United States faces. Future historians are more likely to say the Iraq War was “Mission impossible” than they are to say the mission was accomplished, but there are too many variables to know how Iraq will manage to turn out in the end. It is quite possible -- indeed I think it is likely -- that Iraq will be quite better off some decades from now than it would have been under Saddam’s Baath Party rule. However, the benefits of Iraq turning out all right may prove more negligible and irrelevant to America’s interests than the architects of the war ever imagined.

The Iraq War must be understood in a context that includes: the rise of China and India, the twilight of the hydrocarbon era, the challenge of militant Islam, and global warming. The invasion of Iraq has done little to alleviate these challenges; indeed, the botched occupation has drained America’s resources away from these and other pressing issues. It is impossible to tie a single hurricane, wildfire, or similar ecological catastrophe to climate change. But if the United States continues to suffer record economic and environmental devastation predicted by scientific authorities, then even a successful outcome in Iraq will look like an imprudent use of American resources.

The strategic rationale for invading Iraq included the idea of exerting hegemony over the region’s petroleum resources in order that the United States would benefit from China’s voracious appetite for oil. To put it bluntly, the Bush administration wanted to insure that: U.S. and British oil firms benefited from China’s phenomenal economic growth and that oil purchases would be denominated in dollars (which confers enormous benefits to U.S. financial firms). To date, however, the price of oil has risen to $100 a barrel (a five-fold increase since the Bush administration took office) while the dollar is sinking to new lows. In short, invading Iraq has precipitated the exact opposite of the Bush administration’s strategic aims, not just on the economic and energy fronts, but also in so far as it has boosted the jihadist cause worldwide.

The Bush administration is going to have to expend a lot of energy just to undo the damage its ill-considered and ill-executed invasion has wrought. To this end, Condoleezza Rice has organized a Middle Eastern Peace conference to try and contain Iran and ameliorate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An administration that at one time believed to road to peace in the Middle East went through Baghdad, Tehran, and Syria (i.e., regime change) has now flip-flopped in so far as it is embracing diplomacy in a last ditch effort to salvage Bush’s legacy.

The prospects for a positive outcome in Iraq have increased marginally in recent months, but they are still dim. Simply put, the Bush administration’s legacy is at the mercy of external events and the next administration. Unless some cataclysmic event dramatically changes public opinion, neither the next administration nor the American people are likely to be inclined to sustain Bush’s nation building efforts in Iraq. All the parties jockeying for power in Iraq recognize this and they are laying low. As one observer put it, the current lull in violence we are seeing now will be revealed as a great deception.

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