Oh yeah.. a Shrill-off
When the president persists in talking about staying until "the mission is complete" even though there is no definable military mission, let alone one that can be completed, he is indulging in pure absurdity. The same goes for his talk of "victory," another concept robbed of any definition when the prime minister we are trying to prop up is allied with Mr. Sadr, a man who wants Americans dead and has many scalps to prove it. The newest hollowed-out Bush word to mask the endgame in Iraq is "phase," as if the increasing violence were as transitional as the growing pains of a surly teenager. "Phase" is meant to drown out all the unsettling debate about two words the president doesn't want to hear, "civil war."
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The joke, history may note, is that even as Mr. Bush deludes himself that he is bringing "democracy" to Iraq, he is flouting democracy at home. American voters could not have delivered a clearer mandate on the war than they did on Nov. 7, but apparently elections don't register at the White House unless the voters dip their fingers in purple ink. Mr. Bush seems to think that the only decision he had to make was replacing Donald Rumsfeld and the mission of changing course would be accomplished.
Washington - With Iraq falling apart, it's getting lonely at the top for President Bush.
His hawkish neo-con advisers are deserting him. He had to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Democrats have won control of Congress. U.S. allies are angry at his Iraq policies.
And even Henry Kissinger - one of Bush's foreign policy advisers and a key architect of the Vietnam debacle - has decided Iraq is a can't-win situation. He earlier had told Bush, "The only exit strategy is victory."
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Don't expect any dramatic recommendations from the Iraq Study Group led by Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind. The nine men and one woman on the panel are cautious Washington insiders who got picked for the job because of their don't-rock-the-boat reputations. After all, they might want to get asked again, sometime in the future, to serve on another White House commission.
This is unfortunate because the dire mess in Iraq demands bold action by the U.S. The real solution is a cakewalk out of Iraq tomorrow. The world would stand in shock and awe.
...and Frank wins by a nose.