It is clear that George W. Bush is terribly concerned about the 2006 mid-term elections, and for this reason wants out of Iraq in the worst possible way. But according to Germany's Frankfurter Rundschau, to achieve the kind of stability that would permit an honorable exit, Bush will have to do the unthinkable: Talk to the Iranians.
George W. Bush, Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States, did not announce a peace plan for Iraq on Wednesday. Rather, he opened the campaign for the mid-term elections in November of next year. Such elections are so inconvenient. The disaster in Iraq, for which the neo-conservatives are responsible, could decide the people's voting behavior. Bush wants to prevent that. Nothing else is of interest to him, not the catastrophic situation of the Iraqi people, not the destruction of the beginnings of a post-totalitarian civil society, not the conduct of torture and not the use of weapons that are internationally condemned and the use of which could be a war crime. But since, in view of these facts, his prestige is rapidly deteriorating, he wants out of the mess he has made for himself. With all due respect, the content of his speech before the Naval Academy, as far as ideas and what needs to be done are concerned, had very little to do with reality [See video below photo, right]. Plans to rely on Iraqi troops are currently unrealistic and will remain so for a long time to come. Militias from mutually hostile political/ethnic/religious parties, whose primary goal is to destroy their political rivals, are being inducted into these units. This is an insurmountable barrier to the sought-after creation of accepted, democratic and pluralistic institutions in Iraq. And this will also cause the third pillar of the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," economic recovery, to fail [READ IT]. ... As Israeli military historian Martin van Crefeld put it, the United States has conducted "the dumbest war since Augustus Caesar in the year 9 AD." And not only that, its policies since the announced end of the war deserve a similar description. [Editor's Note: In the year 9AD, the loss of three Roman legions in the disastrous battle of the Teutoburg Forest ended Rome's attempt to conquer Germany, and reconciled Cesar Augustus to more modest frontiers. It was a battle that largely ended the growth of the Roman empire. Augustus, upon hearing of this shocking defeat of the hitherto-victorious Roman armies by so-called barbarian Germans, is said to have uttered the famous and plaintive appeal, "Quinctili Vare, redde legiones!" ("Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!")].
Nothing else is of interest to him, not the catastrophic situation of the Iraqi people, not the destruction of the beginnings of a post-totalitarian civil society, not the conduct of torture and not the use of weapons that are internationally condemned and the use of which could be a war crime. But since, in view of these facts, his prestige is rapidly deteriorating, he wants out of the mess he has made for himself.
With all due respect, the content of his speech before the Naval Academy, as far as ideas and what needs to be done are concerned, had very little to do with reality [See video below photo, right]. Plans to rely on Iraqi troops are currently unrealistic and will remain so for a long time to come. Militias from mutually hostile political/ethnic/religious parties, whose primary goal is to destroy their political rivals, are being inducted into these units. This is an insurmountable barrier to the sought-after creation of accepted, democratic and pluralistic institutions in Iraq. And this will also cause the third pillar of the "National Strategy for Victory in Iraq," economic recovery, to fail [READ IT].
... As Israeli military historian Martin van Crefeld put it, the United States has conducted "the dumbest war since Augustus Caesar in the year 9 AD." And not only that, its policies since the announced end of the war deserve a similar description.
[Editor's Note: In the year 9AD, the loss of three Roman legions in the disastrous battle of the Teutoburg Forest ended Rome's attempt to conquer Germany, and reconciled Cesar Augustus to more modest frontiers. It was a battle that largely ended the growth of the Roman empire. Augustus, upon hearing of this shocking defeat of the hitherto-victorious Roman armies by so-called barbarian Germans, is said to have uttered the famous and plaintive appeal, "Quinctili Vare, redde legiones!" ("Quinctilius Varus, give me back my legions!")].
Nitpick: nope, Rome's attempts to conquer Germany continued for about half a century - Augustus himself sent Germanicus on punitive campaigns after the defeat, one campaign reached the battleground with the Roman legion's remains. But all of these campaigns only achieved a lot of dead Germans, but no conquest. Also, the expansion of the Empire didn't yet end for a century: Dacia, most of Britain, and parts of the Middle East.
(I only know this because I once set out to compile a history of peace in Europe - since traditional history is largely one of wars, what I did was to look for wars for all the years and then identify the gaps. I may post about the results sometime; but I will say that the EU's 60-year peace in Western Europe is pretty much unprecedented even in Roman times.) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
