The following is a section-by-section critique of President Bush’s speech by Juan Cole. He ends the piece with a personal message for the president:
- “Mr. Bush, I don't recognize the world you paint. I find your speech a form of sheer propaganda, having almost no relationship to reality. And I am very, very worried that you will allow to happen to the Oil Gulf what you allowed to happen to New Orleans. After watching you for five years I have become convinced that you don't have the slightest idea what you are doing in Iraq, that you are just reacting and playing it by ear. You can't do that, George. This Iraq thing is extremely complex. It needs serious, concerted thought by high-powered people, not just your cronies and yes-men and ideologues of various stripes (from Right to far-Right). You might just need the help of Iran and Syria to get Iraq right. Did you ever think of that? Iraq is the biggest policy failure in US history so far. You need to get a handle on it, the way you do on tax cuts for the billionaires (you've been very effective in making your rich friends richer). Otherwise all that extra treasure you've thrown to your tuxedoed "base" is going to go right down the tubes, drowned in a world of $20 a gallon gasoline.”
The piece really is an excellent repudiation of Bush’s speech and puts to shame my own endorsement of it just a week ago. I stand my view of the speech that I made then, and still believe that this was one of the best he has ever given on the nature of Islamic terrorism and should have come long ago. Nevertheless, Cole’s review is scathing and compelling., and worth a read.
Of course, there is a great deal that I disagree with coming from Mr. Cole, both with regards to Iraq as well as other foreign policy issues, perhaps most importantly his belief that the US should withdraw all armed forced from Iraq immediately (compelling though his arguments are). Nevertheless, his insights into the conflict are informative more often than not.
1 comment:
Perhaps as with intelligent design the "extreme complex(ity)" of Iraq means that understanding it is best left to the creator.
Seriously though, do you really think all of Cole's pontificating about complexity means he has a better idea of what to do in the long run? Enlisting the help of Iran and Syria? He's got to be kidding(!) Assuming they don't have their own insidious interests and designs on the place (as if that's not a big enough assumption right there), has he seriously figured out how to push this quasi pseudo-idea through the State Department? Through the Senate and its committees? (I would say "through defense" here but there is already enough about that department that people don't trust).
Apparently some people get so bogged down in the presumptive complexity of something that their poorly defended (yet complex?) advice borders on nothing short of the absurd. Complexity of understanding or not, the guy's an agenda-driven ideologue any way you cut it, with suggestions that lack an understanding of politics, let alone a realistic perspective. As short as the administration's approach may seem to come up, nobody's lacking for good long-range ideas, although certainly we might be for those as utterly bizarre as Cole suggests.
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