Panic in the Street -- The Wall Street Meltdown

Wall Street is melting faster than the polar icecaps. Savings and retirement accounts are evaporating faster than an ice cube in a microwave. America’s wealth is being siphoned off quicker than a keg of beer at a frat house. George W. Bush’s party is almost over, but the national hangover is just beginning.

As George Soros observed, we are entering one of the intensive periods of wealth destruction since the Great Depression. The value of the dollar is plummeting, inflation is rising, economic growth is stagnating, unemployment is increasing, and the stock market is tumbling.

History will probably blame all this on George W. Bush, but in fairness he’s only part of the problem. Besides, Forty-three will have to shoulder responsibility for the Iraq debacle, the bungled response to Katrina, the torture and abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, the failure to recognize and respond to the challenge of global warming, and the unraveling of the Republican Party. There’s only so much blame one person can handle.

Still, the unfolding financial catastrophe represents the complete discrediting of the economic philosophy of conservative Republicans like Bush. Supply side economics (the notion that tax cuts are self-financing) and Laissez-faire economics (the idea that markets are self-regulating and self-correcting) are as officially defunct as Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers.

Everyone likes tax cuts and rebate checks. But if you cut taxes and fail to cut spending you increase the deficit, which amounts to a tax increase on future generations. Rebate checks are nice too, but there are only two ways the government can afford to send you money: 1) borrow or 2) raise taxes. If you think about it, George W. Bush really made sense when he justified his tax cut plan by saying, “It’s your money, you paid for it.”

George W. Bush has presided over the weakest economic and jobs growth rates in decades. To put things in perspective, Bill Clinton presided over an economy that created over 20 million new jobs while George Bush’s administration as presided over just 5 million jobs created. Of course, Clinton’s exceptional jobs creation numbers were achieved while he raised taxes and balanced the budget. Bush, on the other hand, inherited a budget surplus and managed to turn it into the largest deficit in history.

Thanks to the Bush administration, America now owes a trillion or two (or three) to pay for the Iraq War. America is on the hook for a couple of trillion from assuming the obligations of Fannie May and Freddie Mac. And let’s not forget the expense of Bush’s Medicare package, a corporate welfare boondoggle that should cost taxpayers another trillion or two. Hey, a trillion here and a trillion there. Pretty soon we’re talking about real money.

The myth of the free markets has obscured a predatory form of crony-capitalism where government insiders steer corporate benefactors to the public trough. Enron was just the canary in the coalmine. George W. Bush has cannibalized America with his socialism for the rich policies.

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The Bush Legacy

George W. Bush is about as popular with Americans as a funeral director visiting a nursing home. The most reviled president in American history, however, is dead certain he’ll be vindicated by posterity. Several prominent pundits – Robert Kagan, Fareed Zakaria, and David Frum – wrote recently that history might go easier on the forty-third president than liberals imagine. They argue, for instance, that the surge is working, liberals are in denial, and Bush has succeeded in his most important responsibility: protecting the nation against another attack. However, an overwhelming body of evidence suggests that Bush’s tenure will almost certainly rank at or near the bottom of American presidents.

When Bush leaves office the world (and most Americans) will breathe a collective sigh of relief. There is no doubt that the next chief executive will inherit the most formidable domestic and foreign policy challenges any American leader has ever faced. The American financial system is on the precipice of the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression, the U.S military is stretched to brink in two indecisive wars, and ecological and weather-related events are taking their toll on America’s resilience and infrastructure as never before. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden is on the loose and the threats stemming from nuclear proliferation and “loose nukes” is growing more urgent by the day. To make matters worse, the precipitous decline in Bush’s short-lived Pax Americana is occurring at the same time that authoritarian regimes like China and Russia appear to be on the rise.

On the economic front, Bush’s supply-side policies have been a complete bust. The administration’s policies have engendered the weakest job growth in the past sixty years, inflation is rising at the most torrid pace in nearly thirty years, and the country is drowning in debt. As Al Gore trenchantly observed some years ago, we’ve been borrowing money from China in order to keep buying Middle Eastern oil, thus mortgaging our future to a rising rival while transferring wealth to a region brimming with anti-Americanism.

The Bush administration has come close to bankrupting America morally too. The so-called “enhanced” interrogation techniques codified by Cheney’s legal scriveners have decimated America’s moral authority. Put simply, Bush’s decision to unilaterally suspend the Geneva Convention when it came to the War on Terror has proven as unwise as it was unlawful. America’s Constitution refers to the inalienable rights that belong to all persons. Thus, Bush’s efforts to deny a certain category of persons – enemy combatants – all due process and legal rights is nothing less than an assault upon the most cherished and fundamental of American values.

Bush is the first American president to hold an MBA, but his management “skills” makes Drew Carey seem like CEO material in comparison. The bungled mishandling of post-war Iraq and post-hurricane New Orleans shattered America’s image as a can-do nation. Bush’s installation of political hacks at FEMA, the Justice Department, and the reconstruction efforts in Iraq corroded the competencies of institutions Americans count on. And Bush’s gut instinct has proven disastrous when it comes to picking subordinates (e.g., the axis-of-incompetents: Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, & Michael Brown) or sizing up world leaders (Vladimir Putin and Pervez Musharraf).

Bush’s apologists and enablers claim that “victory is within sight” in Iraq. It may be possible to win a phyrric victory in Iraq (“one more victory like that and we are doomed”), but America is sacrificing its global strategic position to “win” in Iraq. How long can the United States afford to spend $10 billion dollars a month in Iraq, essentially paying Sunni insurgents to shoot at al-Qaeda instead of us? It may seem like a bargain, except that al-Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq until after we invaded, and the Sunni militias are likely to start shooting at us and/or the Shiite government if their U.S. taxpayer financed monthly stipends are ever cut off. Meanwhile, Iran’s regional ambition, which include acquiring nuclear weapons and dominating the Persian Gulf, have been furthered because the U.S. toppled the Mullahs’ main enemy, the Baathists, and then got bogged down in Iraq where U.S. soldiers would essentially become 160,000 hostages should America attack Iran’s nuclear program.

The invasion of Iraq set a dangerous precedent because the U.S. came to be seen as a rogue nation. Conservatives have a hard time absorbing this, convinced as they are of America’s exceptionalism. But the Bush administration’s attempt to establish a Pax Americana has instead led to a steep decline in America’s power and prestige. Sensing this, Russia and other authoritarian countries are likely to ally themselves against American interests and cite U.S. hypocrisy to cover their own unilateralism and aggression. Russia’s foray into Georgia is likely just a prelude to an era where the “strong do what they can and weak suffer what they must.”

Scrapping the Geneva Conventions, unilaterally abrogating the ABM treaty, heaping scorn upon the Kyoto Accord, trashing the UN, and ignoring international law was in keeping with the Bush administration’s mind-set, namely that “might makes right.” The concept that peace and stability might be promoted through collective security, international legitimacy, and soft power seemed inconceivable for the ideologically rigid reactionaries that made up the administration. Bush has demonstrated greater flexibility, including an increased emphasis on diplomatic suasion, in his second term, but much of the administration’s energy has been consumed undoing the damage wrought during the first term.

It would be hard to pick the most despicable aspect of Bush’s failed presidency. But certainly, Bush and Cheney’s willingness to let a low-level military personnel take the heat for abusive practices approved at the highest level is especially loathsome. Top legal advisors to the president and vice-president (David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo) crafted torture memos that codified barbarism, sexual sadism, and psychological cruelty. These legal scriveners did for the law what Arthur Anderson did for accounting; they made a mockery out of the ideals their respective professions stand for. For Bush and Cheney to deplore the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo that their policies legitimized is cowardly, hypocritical, and dishonest.

Few thinking Americans take the Bush administration seriously anymore. Bush’s rhetoric has been so at variance with reality that most people sensibly ignore what he has to say. Bush’s greatest accomplishment -- prior to his 5 to 4 win in the Supreme Court, which effectively overturned the will of the majority of American voters – was overcoming his chronic alcohol abuse. Power has a way of revealing character – or lack thereof – and so does history. That’s why I wouldn’t bet a wooden nickel that George W. Bush will look much better once the dark recesses of his shady administration are exposed to the light of history.

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The Bush Administration Announces Capture of Bin Laden

(AP) – April 1st 2008

In a stunning development, the White House announced today the capture of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. The apprehension of the world’s most wanted terrorist marks an extraordinary reversal for the Bush administration, which has drawn considerable flack over its handling of the war on terror, the economy, and the conflict in Iraq. Supporters of President Bush are hailing the capture as a “masterstroke.” And new details are emerging that are sure to change the perception Americans have of their president, who has endured historically low approval ratings while being maligned by critics as an “incompetent bungler.”

Bush’s image is certain to change as White House officials are confirming that the President personally commanded the Special Forces team that tracked bin Laden to his mountain lair, and then executed the daring daylight raid that captured the notorious evil doer. Indeed, in perhaps the most extraordinary twist of this amazing turn of events, it has been established that the “President Bush” who has governed in Washington since September 29th, 2001 – the president Americans have come to loath, despise, and revile – is actually a double. In fact, while Bush’s stand-in was donning a flight suit, bungling Katrina, and mishandling Iraq the real President Bush has been doggedly leading a crack team of Green Berets as they tracked the most notorious terrorist through some of the challenging and treacherous mountain biking terrain in the world.

Harry Smitten Jr., the versatile character actor who impersonated a seemingly hapless President Bush – “the role of a lifetime,” as he described it – bore such a close physical resemblance to the actual President Bush that not even the First Lady noticed the difference. Indeed, the ruse was so top-secret the president’s father, George H.W. Bush, wasn’t privy to the deception either. “He seemed a little clueless when it came to fly-fishing, golf, and horseshoes,” the elder Bush confessed. “Heck, I can’t tell you how many times he poked me in the eye with his fishing pole, shanked a drive, or drove into a ditch with the golf cart. “But I chalked it up to the immense pressures of being Commander-in-Chief. Gosh dang if this whole thing doesn’t put a lump in a dad’s throat. God bless my boy. And God bless America, now that we don’t have to worry about Obama anymore”

Grainy video of bin Laden’s capture quickly made it on to Youtube, providing incontrovertible proof of Bush’s success in bringing America’s most wanted fugitive to justice. The clip, which has already attracted nearly as many viewers as Brittany Spears’ latest breakdown, shows the real President Bush in combat fatigues single-handedly wrestling bin Laden to the ground in a dank cave. A spokesperson for al-Qaeda confirmed the authenticity of the video, but accused Bush of using an “illegal chokehold.” An administration official disagreed, insisting that the chokehold was legal in both the WWF and the UFC. The official later released a secret Justice Department memo, signed by former Attorney General Gonzales, which officially scrapped the Marquis of Queensbury rules that govern hand-to-hand combat involving a head of state and enemy combatants. Gonzales dismissed the Marquis of Queensbury rules as “quaint” in signing off in favor of the no-holds barred “rules” associated with ex-cons using mixed martial arts in cage fighting as seen on Pay Per View.

The dramatic circumstances surroundings bin Laden’s capture is certain to alter the political landscape. Already, Hillary is ducking for cover and Obama is taking legal steps to have his name changed to Michael Jackson. Not surprisingly, Bush’s approval ratings have soared and the Dow Jones greeted the news by rising 1,200 points minutes after Martha Stewart rang the opening bell on Wall Street. “This is the end of the Bush Recession,” quipped one market analyst, who predicted that paper gains in the stock market would soon wipe out losses in the housing market. Likewise, military experts now foresee a quick resolution to the situation Iraq as Al Sadr, the Sunni insurgents, the Shiite militias, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recognize that they are no longer up against the most incompetent military commander since George Armstrong Custer.

Presidential scholars, too, are marveling at the stunning turnaround in Bush’s reputation. As historian Doris Kearns Goodwin put it, “Here’s a guy who looked for all the world like the biggest loser in American presidential history, but then suddenly the country realizes we’ve witnessed one of the most audacious cover-ups and successful character reversals that ever played out on the world stage. George W. Bush is certain to go down in history as one of the boldest, most creative, and beloved presidents in American history.” And what does Harry Smitten Jr., the actor who played his part to perfection as a bumbling boob of a president have to say about his role in all of this? Mr. Smitten didn’t have any immediate comment, except to wish everyone a happy April Fool’s Day

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The Grand Delusion

Great powers should never entangle themselves in tribal conflicts. That lessons has been lost on the Bush administration, which has managed to tie down U.S. troops in the middle of a civil war in the heart of the Middle East. The U.S. faces a diabolic choice: 1) Leave Iraq and watch the country explode or 2) stay and allow a disastrous war to sap America’s financial and military strength. The Iraq war has revealed Bush’s moral clarity to be nothing but a mushy mirage.

The conventional wisdom among conservative commentators is that the surge is working. Critics of the war, they contend, are in a state of denial about the reductions in violence and the political progress being made. Even worse, conservative commentators insist, opponents of the war calling for a withdrawal would consign the U.S. to a humiliating defeat just when victory is within reach. Once again, so the argument goes, liberals are so blinded by their hatred of President Bush that they would hand al-Qaeda a decisive military and propaganda victory.

All of this reflects a complete misunderstanding of what is happening in Iraq. Put simply, only a small fraction of the violence in Iraq is instigated by al-Qaeda affiliated groups; the vast majority involves criminal gangs, sectarian militias, and the like fighting it out for political supremacy. The U.S. military is the only force capable of preventing Iraq from descending into a full-scale civil war that the ill-advised invasion and botched occupation precipitated in the first place.

Rampant corruption is a virtually ineradicable impediment to reconstruction and political reconciliation. Criminal enterprises and politicians are siphoning off the country’s oil revenue to line their pockets and build their power bases, which insures that there are insufficient resources to rebuild a unified and pluralistic Iraq. Violence is down for several reasons that have little to do with the surge. First, much of the ethnic cleansing has already taken place as the country has been divided up into ethnic enclaves. Second, Sunni insurgents, recognizing they were on the losing end of a civil war, have made a short-term tactical alliance with the U.S. military in the hopes of bolstering their financial and military position for the day the expect to take on the Shiite led government.

Subsidizing Sunni security forces has bought a temporary lull in violence, but it carries with it long-term costs, both to the U.S taxpayer and in so far as it amounts to arming a force opposed to the government we are counting on to keep Iraq from disintegrating. It is ironic in the extreme, of course, to see the Bush administration handing out cash to Sunni security forces patrolling neighborhoods in Iraq while at the same time millions of our fellow citizens are facing foreclosures here at home. When Americans begin to realize that we are paying former Sunni insurgents not to fight us I expect the architect of this debacle, George W. Bush, will be about as popular as Heather Mills would be at a Beatles convention.

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Is the Surge Really Working?

The surge in Iraq may be succeeding (at least on a superficial tactical level) but America is sinking thanks to the strategic ineptitude of the Bush administration. John McCain, according to the Washington Post’s Michael Gerson, is close to clinching the Republican nomination because he courageously embraced Bush’s troop surge, and now that unpopular decision, Gerson argues, is in the process of being vindicated.

To be sure, any reduction in violence is a welcome sign, but the notion that the United States is achieving momentum towards “victory” reflects a tragic misunderstanding on part of Republicans. The United States could eventually achieve stability in Iraq, but at this stage any victory is likely to prove phyrric. That is, any “benefits” will amount to averting and mitigating consequences and potential worst-case scenarios set in motion by the ill-considered invasion and disastrously managed occupation itself. Stabilizing Iraq may have at best a neutral impact on global terrorism, though in all-likelihood America’s presence in region will be a rallying cry for jihadists for decades to come. Put simply, Iraq became the spawning ground for a new generation of anti-Western foot soldiers who can take battlefield experience and techniques gleaned in Iraq to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Europe, and elsewhere.

Bush’s theory that a democratic Iraq would transform the Middle East has been turned on its head. Spreading liberty as a way of reducing terrorism was a tempting panacea at best, but it is proving simplistic and false. The United States can continue to pour blood and treasure into Iraq, but in the interim it is neglecting its own crumbling infrastructure and the investments it needs to secure a more prosperous economic future. Ironically, at the very moment it’s own resilience is being sorely tested the country is facing a series of virtually unprecedented environmental calamities. Responsible scientists will not attribute any one event to global warming, but taken as a whole the wildfires, tornadoes, and other natural disasters we’ve seen of late are beginning to represent a scale of devastation forecast by Al Gore and experts on global climate change. On this issue, tragically, George Bush and his conservative minions resemble nothing so much as a flock of ostriches with their collective heads in the sand.

The cultural anthropologist Jared Diamond, in his book Collapse, observes how the decline of great powers are often associated with military defeats on the periphery of empire, which in truth mask ecological collapse at home. There is no doubt – none whatsoever – that the seven years of the Bush administration have led to an unprecedented decline in America’s strategic, moral, and economic strength. In simple terms, the United States is in a vicious cycle: Borrowing money to purchase oil from Middle East, which empowers anti-American forces, while simultaneously contributing to the high level of carbon emissions that fuel global warming. Bush, for his part, seems oblivious to the fact that American taxpayers are funding both sides in the terror war. To add insult to injury, many victims of Katrina and the tornadoes in the South have family members serving in Iraq. We are stuck in a war we never should have launched while the Bush administration completely ignored the gathering threat posed by environmental calamities fueled by global warming, which our own imprudent and unsustainable energy habits helped bring about.

Great leaders have a sense for the arc of history. That is, they see where history is going and they prepare their people to face the challenges of the future. Al Gore, for instance, has been trying to educate the public on global warming for three decades. He was also prescient – in a way Bush is incapable of – in recognizing the potential the U.S. led invasion and occupation of Iraq would have to ignite sectarian conflict that could destabilize the entire Middle East.

Gore (and most Democrats) understand that confronting the challenge of Islamic extremism will take a lot more that marshalling America’s military power; it will take diplomatic suasion and bi-partisan cooperation to rally the world behind a comprehensive strategy to increase the ideological appeal of America and its Western values (especially women’s rights and the separation of church and state) while reducing the appeal of Islamic extremism. It will also entail taking the United States beyond the carbon era.

Gore’s rational approach to problem solving contrasts sharply with Bush’s disastrous faith-based approach to governing. Conservative ideologues like Bush see terrorism as a manifestation of ontological Evil, a superstitious outlook that engenders a historical form of madness akin to the Salem witch trials or the Inquisition. It is no accident, for instance, that Bush’s response to the challenge of terrorism includes waterboarding and other forms of torture generally associated with the Middle Ages. Indeed, his style of leadership hearkens back to the Divine Right of Kings, the long discredited notion that a political leader functions as God’s regent here on earth.

The historian Arnold Toynbee observed that the rise of religious fundamentalism is invariably a sign of civil decline. He also observed that civilizations that attempt meet existential challenges by remaking the rest of the world (especially far-flung outposts on the periphery of empire) are invariably less successful that than civilizations that remake and renew themselves from within. This insight goes along way in explaining the Bush tragedy; the Bush administration has effectively outsourced America’s national security to Iraq’s security forces.

The surge has produced some tactical advantages, but there are compelling reasons to doubt they can be sustained. For one thing, widespread corruption governing the dispersion of oil revenues does not bode well for a political reconciliation. Further, Iraq’s various militias recognize the surge is by its nature of limited duration. Thus, they have every incentive to lay low and/or play-up their al-Qaeda fighting bona fides in the hopes of procuring as much American aid and equipment before Iraq enters the next phase when American troops begin to draw down in the Spring/Summer of 2008.

America’s predicament in Iraq resembles a Zugswang, which is a situation in chess where every possible move you make will leave you worse off. The United States may prevail in Iraq, yet maintaining the present commitment is likely to further hasten America’s decline. Those among Bush’s dwindling number of apologist who still believe that some decades from now the United States will be able to declare “Mission Accomplished” should remember the words of King Pyrrhus: “one more victory such as this and we are ruined.”

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Bush’s State of Disunion

Bush’s State of the Union was a surreal exercise in self-delusion. Virtually everyone – Republicans and Democrats – recognize the Bush administration has been a catastrophic failure, but lawmakers on both sides of the aisles treated our hapless and incompetent president to rapturous applause. It may be a measure of how morally obtuse our political class is that a hoard of legislators sought the autograph of the man who presided over Katrina, Guantanamo, and the tragically mishandled invasion of Iraq.

All the available evidence suggests that George W. Bush is poised to eclipse Andrew Johnson, Warren Harding, and Richard Nixon as the single worst chief executive in presidential history. Still, a dwindling number of Bush sycophants and apologists believe forty-three will be vindicated by history, just as Harry Truman has been. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to square their Pollyannaish views with the grim reality that over the last seven years the United States has suffered an unprecedented and precipitous decline in its national power and moral prestige. Put simply, Bush’s policies have left the United States isolated, drained, and divided while greatly exacerbating the strategic and economic challenges the country faces.

Former Bush scriptwriter, Michael Gerson, tries to put the best spin on Bush’s State of the Union in his column in the Washington Post. Bush, Gerson argues, has remained true to the principles of compassionate conservatism. His faith-based initiatives, AIDS relief efforts, and educational reforms associated with the No Child Left Behind legislation represent the "persistent advocacy" of a compassionate leader. Bush bashing has become an industry fueled on hatred, Gerson implies, of a decent man who aimed to do well.

I’ve never subscribed to the simple-minded view that Gergon attributes to Bush critics, namely, that Bush is "heartless and callous." No doubt, Bush’s legacy will include some admirable and worthy accomplishments. Ironically, however, I believe it is Bush messianic idealism coupled with his personal mediocrity that accounts for the unfolding multiple tragedies his administration is responsible for.

At one time or another, Bush has exhibited an axis-of-mental ills – dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, alcoholism – that probably go a long way to explaining the perverse mixture of hubris and ineptness he has displayed in office. It’s not that Bush is unintelligent, by any means, but his thought processes and reasoning are demonstrably defective. His persistent resort to cliches, mixed metaphors, and non-sequitars, for instance, is a sign of artful demagoguery at best, or serious cognitive deficits at worst.

It’s easy to laugh at the mixed metaphor that has become virtually synonymous with the Bush administration’s spectacular intelligence failure regarding Saddam’s phantom WMD -- "we can’t wait for the smoking gun to become a mushroom cloud" – but as the pundit Karl Kraus recognized long ago, a person’s character is invariably revealed by the way they use language. It’s probably no accident that Bush failed to connect the dots prior to 9/11, and then subsequently connected dots where there was no logical connection (Iraq and al-Qaeda). Likewise, his decision to lump three disparate states into the infamous "axis-of-evil" is another example of Bush connecting the dots where no formal alliance or real-world connection existed.

Bush’s ADD almost certainly has everything to do with the lack of due diligence he displayed in the run up to the Iraq War. Whether it is the infamous sixteen words that everyone agrees should never have appeared in 2003 State of the Union, or the failure to prepare for the occupation of Iraq, Bush’s decision-making processes can best be characterized as rash, impetuous, reckless, and ill considered. He never planned for worst-case scenarios because he mistook prudence for pessimism. And he never allowed evidence or the facts to get in the way of his instincts. Bush’s ADD has made him a deeply irrational decision-maker.

Bush’s "leadership" has been a moral, strategic, and economic calamity for the United States. As recession looms, the deficit swells, and the dollar slumps to new lows it is becoming apparent to most Americans just how much the country has been steered in the wrong direction by the Bush administration. The architect of America’s great unraveling, however, remains largely oblivious to all this. How is this possible? I remember a Town Meeting where President Bush was asked about his decision to go to war with Iraq. Bush defended his war of choice, but surreally blamed Saddam for kicking the UN weapons inspectors out of the country. Much of the audience – and I’m sure Bush too – probably believed the U.S. had done everything it could to avoid war.

The only problem, of course, is that it wasn’t Saddam who kicked the inspectors out of Iraq, it was president Bush that ordered them out because he insisted the inspections weren’t working. Another couple of weeks, Hans Blix contented later, and we’d have known for sure that Saddam never had the alleged WMD stockpiles. Even after the fact, Bush couldn’t admit the truth. It’s a telling revelation of a president who will probably go down in history as the political equivalent of Inspector Clouseau.

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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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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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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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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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