Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

William Kristol continues to peddle his delusion today in the Washington Post. Kristol thinks that George W Bush will be remembered as a successful president. He cites "progress" in Iraq:

The fact is that military progress on the ground in Iraq in the past few months has been greater than even surge proponents like me expected, and political progress is beginning to follow.

I have to question whether Mr. Kristol’s definition of "progress" is the same as mine, or whether his definition of "progress" is in the national interest. However, whatever he is selling, its clear that George W Bush is buying. And to the detriment of the country and the presidency.

While the Democrats in Congress try once again to put muscle behind their words, Republican senators, most notably Richard Lugar of Indiana, are trying to lead the President toward a kinder gentler withdrawal by asking him to present a new strategy for Iraq in October. Neither strategy will work.

While it has been clear to many citizens from the very beginning, the Iraq Study Group report last December changed the conversation in Washington from how to win in Iraq to how best to salvage America from George W Bush’s blunder. George W Bush responded to the report like a petulant school boy - he did exactly the opposite of what was prudent and what was recommended. Instead of considering what was in the best interest of the country, he listened to the delusions of Fred Kagan and the amoral preachings of the likes of William Kristol.

Like his Secretary of Homeland Security, George W Bush sides with his gut over facts or evidence. In his defiant press conference earlier in the week in response to his own administration’s report of massive failure in Iraq, Mr. Bush laid to rest any notion that he was connected with reality:

I know some in Washington would like us to start leaving Iraq now. To begin withdrawing before our commanders tell us we are ready would be dangerous for Iraq, for the region, and for the United States. It would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al Qaeda. It would mean that we’d be risking mass killings on a horrific scale. It would mean we’d allow the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq to replace the one they lost in Afghanistan. It would mean increasing the probability that American troops would have to return at some later date to confront an enemy that is even more dangerous.

This kind of thinking leaves little room for nuance, as the Republicans in the Senate are hoping for. Still I have much sympathy for Senator Lugar’s approach. The alternative, the Democratic approach of cutting off funding for the troops, will undoubtebly lead to a constitutional showdown between the president’s article II commander-in-chief powers and the Congress’s Article I war making and funding powers. There is very little doubt in my mind that in this constitutional crisis the presidency will be the loser. The result of George W Bush’s intransigence and his assertion of vast executive authority will ironically be a weakened presidency. Under a different president, faced with such an outcome, the president would avoid this game of chicken for the sake of the country and the office he holds. A more enlightened president would take the escape hatch provided by Senator Lugar and the Iraq Study Group. But not this president.

So, it seems to me that we have really two options. We can let George W Bush run out the clock of his presidency by remaining in Iraq and continuing this fiasco, or we - through our elected representatives in Congress - can bring this war to an end by exercise of constitutional authority over the executive’s actions.

Letting this president run out the clock means the deaths of over a thousand more American soldiers and many more Iraqis, a further destabilization of the region, a further increase in hatred toward America - a hatred that will inevitably manifest itself in attacks against the homeland, and lasting damage to the balance of power in government. Letting this president run out the clock without challenge from the other co-equal branches of government means setting a precedent for authoritarian usurpation of executive power. America will lose, not only the Iraq war, but its own identity and way of life. Osama bin Laden will no doubt approve.

Bringing this war to an end by Congressional action will cause damage to the institution of the presidency by tipping the constitutional balance and injecting the Congress into the exercise of foreign policy. This institutional damage may be avoided by declaring this presidency, the presidency of George W Bush, as an aberration. It should be argued that Mr. Bush has himself damaged the presidency and the national interest by his orchestration and execution of this war -a high crime and misdemeanor. The conversation should not only be about how we get out of this war, but must also include how we got into this war. The former should be the basis for Congressional action to end this war, the latter should be the basis for the Congressional exercise of its Article I powers to impeach and remove the president from office. To balance Congressional action to defund this war, impeachment proceedings must begin. Impeachment will confirm that Congressional intervention was necessary to reign in this president and not the presidency.

It is a sad day in America when we must talk about the impeachment of a president. But the presidency and the nation is far more important than the political legacy of George W Bush. So, while William Kristol and his ilk spin to salvage Mr. Bush’s legacy, we the citizens through our elected representatives must act to salvage the constitutional office of the presidency from this president. In doing so, we will have ended a senseless war and the unnecessary and avoidable deaths of thousands.

Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker last April:

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack.

Last week Israel launched its massive bombardment of Lebanon ostensively to rescue two kidnapped soldiers from Hezbollah. However, within a few days it became quite apparent that Israel had wider goals. Israel says that its goal is to destroy Hezbollah once and for all. However, as I pointed out in an earlier post, that goal is unlikely and Israel certainly knows it is unlikely. In fact with every bomb that falls on Lebanon, Hezbollah becomes politically stronger as the beleaguered population turns to them for protection and for essential services. Thanks to Israel, Hezbollah has been resurrected once again as Lebanon’s resistance movement. That is a tremendous price in long-term security for Israel to pay for short-term revenge.

But it can’t simply be revenge. The massive bombardment and the misery caused the Lebanese people is being pursued at the service of a broader military agenda. This is the Doctrine of Preemption at its most naked form. Hezbollah is Iran’s primary deterrent against Israel in the event of an attack. Israel knows that it cannot defeat Hezbollah with aerial bombing or another long and protracted ground invasion of Lebanon, but it can certainly degrade its capabilities in the short term and cause Hezbollah to go to ground. That may be quite enough to prepare the ground for an American or Israeli attack on Iran.

When the Seymour Hersh article came out, there was public concern that the Bush Administration was set on a path to war with Iran. Those concerns have not been allayed by recent events. In fact, recent events suggest that war with Iran is only a matter of time. Responding to Mr. Hersh’s article I wrote this at the time:

The Israelis have been pushing the notion of a point of no return, or "turning point", for quite some time, arguing that even though the actual bomb may be sometime away the date on the calendar that we should be concerned about is much sooner when the Iranian program reaches a technical threshold that once achieved cannot be reversed. Israel has chosen a timetable for attack by the United States by the end of this year by indicating if this attack does not happen, they will launch the attack unilaterally. Israel has also been at the forefront of the nuclear strike option.

The timetable set by Israel for the United States dovetails nicely with the November Congressional elections. An attack on Iran would politically rescue Mr. Bush and the Congressional Republicans from the disaster in Iraq. The actual attack does not have to occur before the elections, in fact it is better politically that the attack take place after the elections. The drumbeat to war and the tension and fear it will generate for the public is much more useful as a political tool than the war itself. By this time in early November, with any luck for the Republicans, the daily death toll in Iraq, the Congressional scandals, the NSA spying and the fallout from the NIE leaking should all take a backseat to the coming war with Iran. With these constraints, the likely strike date on Iran will be in late November or early December of this year, just in time for the Christmas season.

I think the Bush Administration is right on schedule for an end-of-year/election time attack on Iran.

The usual suspects are out in full force. Bill Kristol is foaming at the mouth with talk of war with Iran. All fingers are pointing at Iran as the real problem. The White House has given Israel time to "defang" Hezbollah and is oddly silent as the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon grows. Mr. Bush’s chief Anti-Diplomat at the United Nations brushed aside Kofi Annan’s call for a cease-fire with the standard mantra:

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, reacted skeptically to the proposals, saying the United States wants a cessation of hostilities to be part of a "comprehensive change in the region" and does not see how a cease-fire agreement can be reached "with a group of terrorists."

The American position is becoming very hard to defend as more Lebanese continue to die. Yet, here we are and now we are also seeing Iranian tourists at North Korean missile launches. The rhetoric and the military plans are coming together rather nicely. A pliant Congress and a public outraged at Iran for "orchestrating" the kidnapping of 2 Israeli soldiers will make for an easy ride into Tehran.

What happens after the bombs land in Iran remains the real concern. But just like in Iraq, an exit strategy is not part of Mr. Bush’s war chest. I have always said that the way out of Iraq for Mr. Bush lay through Iran. In other words, he can make the conflict in Iraq a footnote by starting a wider conflict in the region. It may not be the smartest foreign policy move for the United States, but it is likely to be a political winner come November.

Charles Krauthammer can’t help himself. He is a desperate man. Like Pavlov’s dog he cannot help lapping at Hitler’s corpse when presented with the opportunity. Krauthammer, like a good neo-conservative soldier, throws everything including the kitchen sink at Iran. Krauthammer wants to attack Iran like he wanted to attack Iraq. He wants the United States Government to feed his bloodlust by attacking Iran. He wants the citizens to fall in line by exploiting the memory of the Holocaust and using it as an emotional hammer to bludgeon us into submission.

Charles Krauthammer is a deeply cynical dangerous warmonger. He paints the picture of Jewish suffering and the attempted annihilation of Jews by Hitler:

For 2,000 years, Jews found protection in dispersion — protection not for individual communities, which were routinely persecuted and massacred, but protection for the Jewish people as a whole. Decimated here, they could survive there. They could be persecuted in Spain and find refuge in Constantinople. They could be massacred in the Rhineland during the Crusades or in the Ukraine during the Khmelnytsky Insurrection of 1648-49 and yet survive in the rest of Europe.

Hitler put an end to that illusion. He demonstrated that modern anti-Semitism married to modern technology — railroads, disciplined bureaucracies, gas chambers that kill with industrial efficiency — could take a scattered people and "concentrate" them for annihilation.

Then he applies the emotional coup de grâce:

His successors now reside in Tehran. The world has paid ample attention to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s declaration that Israel must be destroyed. Less attention has been paid to Iranian leaders’ pronouncements on exactly how Israel would be "eliminated by one storm," as Ahmadinejad has promised.

He wants us to dispense with reason and follow him down his cynical journey:

As it races to acquire nuclear weapons, Iran makes clear that if there is any trouble, the Jews will be the first to suffer. "We have announced that wherever [in Iran] America does make any mischief, the first place we target will be Israel," said Gen. Mohammad Ebrahim Dehghani, a top Revolutionary Guards commander. Hitler was only slightly more direct when he announced seven months before invading Poland that, if there was another war, "the result will be . . . the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe."

Until finally we are in a box of his making and overcome with emotion we shout to the world, "Never again!":

When Iran’s mullahs acquire their coveted nukes in the next few years, the number of Jews in Israel will just be reaching 6 million. Never again?

I would have some empathy for Krauthammer and may have been duped into believing that his argument might be heartfelt save some inconvenient history. Krauthammer and his cohorts have dragged around the corpse of Hitler whenever it suited them. They are always tilting at the corpse of Hitler whenever they want to aim the immense military might of the United States at their chosen foe.

So it was with Saddam before we were misled into attacking Iraq:

Former CIA Director James Woolsey warns that Saddam Hussein "poses the same kind of threat to the United States that Hitler posed in Germany in the mid 1930s when the British and the French kept postponing dealing with him in the way that some people are advocating dealing with Saddam how."

The corpse of Hitler also comes to the rescue whenever we need to bash Hugo Chavez:

"I mean, we’ve got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money," Rumsfeld added. "He’s a person who was elected legally _ just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally _ and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others."

And now this nation’s tired guns are being pointed at Iran. Krauthammer tag teams with William Kristol and others in pulling the corpse of Hitler through the American town square. They scream, "Never again! Never again!" and they want us to join in on the chant.

The trotting out of Hitler to justify another first strike by the United States is so without merit that it really does not warrant a substantive rebuttal. It merits only ridicule. That and the obvious observation that if Israel so chooses it could wipe Iran off the map with a massive nuclear strike.

Krauthammer and his cohorts are desperate to go for the trifecta before their time in power runs out. With Iraq dispatched they have their sights on Iran and Syria. I hope the American people will not be fooled again. We should meet these baseless and cynical attempts at fear mongering and collectively shout at Krauthammer and the neo-conservative fanatics that we will not be fooled again. We should collectively shout: "Never Again!"