The reviews are in: the House ethics report on Foleygate was seriously lame.
Bush in desperate search for someone who will tell him what he wants to hear on Iraq. The lede from the AP: “President Bush on Monday opened three days of intensive consultations on Iraq, saying the United States and countries across the Middle East have a vital stake in helping the fragile government in Baghdad succeed.” This afternoon, he’s got the historians and retired generals coming in.
As long as the White House is advertising its Iraq policy review, I want to take note of the weekend press reports that say the White House is giving active consideration to saying it’s a civil war and getting behind the Shi’a against the Sunni.
This is a really good example of how you can’t underestimate the Bush White House’s ability to up the ante and embrace a new policy even more ridiculous than those they’ve tried before.
A few points.
Point one. In the 1990s, the Czechs and the Slovaks managed are remarkably amicable and peaceful divison of their country. Let’s say that the Sunni and Shi’a don’t appear to be pursuing that model. At the moment, we’re in a process of what you might call slow-motion ethnic cleansing and mass-killing. Once it’s war to the knife, I think you have to figure both escalate dramatically. There’s probably a decent chance of inter-sectarian bloodshed on a Balkan scale, or perhaps one that would make what happened in the Balkans in the 1990s pale by comparison.
My recollection is that Sunni Arabs make up about 20% of the population in Iraq. If we’re actively backing the Shi’a, how well do you figure they make out? How well do they fair in the areas of mixed population? And where do we fit in in that? We’ll be on hand to enforce the Geneva Conventions?
Point two. If Iraq’s Sunni population is set to be slaughtered or at least dominated by the Shi’a Arabs, where do they go for help? Presumably to the rest of the nearby Arab states, each of which is overwhemingly Sunni. (There are some exceptions here: I believe the majority of Lebanese Muslims are Shi’a and I think that at least one of the Gulf emirates has a Shi’a majority even though it’s ruled by Sunnis.) In any case, the major point is they don’t have a shortage of potential allies nearby, not the least of which is Saudi Arabia. So it’s us on one side and potentially the Saudis, the Jordanians, possibly the Egyptians who see the Iranians as major rivals, maybe the Turks since they may assume a Shi’a-dominated Iraq wouldn’t care as much about keeping the Kurds in the country.
Who knows.
So now we’ve got ourselves aligned on one side in an inter-communal bloodbath with most of our allies in the region on the other side. It’s us against everyone else, on the side of a regional sectarian minority with close ties to Iran. Sounds great. Plus, did I mention that al Qaida views the Shi’a as heretics? So this new policy should help cool those waters too.
Point Three. Do Iraq’s Shi’a see themselves as closer to the United States or Shi’a Iran? Anyone want to take a stab at that one?
Reed Hundt was right over the weekend when he noted that a lot of the subtext to the debate over the Baker report is a return to the 1980s era alignment of our interests with the dominant Sunni establishments in the region. That’s a lot of what the administration was trying to overturn by getting into Iraq in the first place. Remember how the Iraqi Shi’a loved the United States? Oh, you didn’t hear that one? You have to be in Washington in 2002.
Anyway, can anyone think of a more ridiculous idea than to get beyond the Shi’a in their effort to repay the Sunnis for what they perceive (not without good reason) as decades and arguably centuries of oppression? This should be lots of fun.
TPM Reader DW surveys the scene …
As students of politics the next two years are going to be fascinating. Bush is never good under pressure and in the wake of the ISG Report Bush is completely floundering, and he has nothing to buoy him anymore. Bush never really stands on his own so much as he attacks others instead, but that dog won’t hunt anymore.
The Congressional Republicans are literally rats fleeing the sinking ship. And although this started before the election, it is now like a tidal wave. Bush’s people will come out with their self-serving reports which will meet with bipartisan scorn and only make the situation worse for Bush with him desperately clinging to that nonsense while Baghdad burns.
He and Cheney are completely alone now. We are going to see approval polls in Nixon territory probably by Feb. We are looking at historic lows and how will the DC world react?
I look for the White House to be surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire by spring with Bush and Cheney holed up inside like Howard Hughes.
When have we ever seen anything like this?
It’s like the proverbial car crash. I know I shouldn’t stare, but I can’t look away.
This sounds about right to me. Add to this the fact that Bush’s reaction to the ISG report now appears to be to find an outside gaggle of whack-jobs who will attack it and let the president off the hook — so either the neocons themselves, which is most likely, or some equivalent group of nutbars. Believe me, the ISG report isn’t gospel. And it’s even pretty lame on some counts. But when clinical won’t accept deeply flawed, you know the meds have yet to take effect.
Hey, Halliburton, and you other companies likely to be investigated by the new Congress, don’t say we never did anything for ya.
Here’s a primer to help you along.
Bush adminstration loves scientists so much it keeps one on the payroll even after he’s pled guilty to criminal conflict of interest.
GOP oppo research push-over John Solomon headed from the AP to Washington Post?!?! Apparently they’re going to set him up with his own investigative unit.
Presumably in addition to the one he has at the RNC.
Update: More here.
Dobson keeps it on the down-low about Romney’s support for gay rights.