GW Bush & his Flag Officers in Wonderland

The first two chapters in Lewis Carroll's ALICE IN WONDERLAND are titled DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE and the POOL OF TEARS. In this second chapter, Alice finds a crocodile by a pool and declares: "How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in with gently smiling Jaws". GW Bush with his dutifully saluting generals and admirals have jumped into the rabbit hole and have arrived at the Pool of Tears – the crocodile is there to greet them. GW Bush's latest speech to justify his token reinforcement of Iraq, when events to the contrary auger for staged withdrawal, is a guide to his fantasy wonderland – his estimate of the situation is corrupt, as usual faith-based, and has little to do with reality and nothing to do with intelligence.

The false premise he builds on for his latest strategy, A Way Forward, is that the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiite government wants American troops to remain in Iraq. Evidence points, however, to just the opposite; according to reliable polls, over 60% of the Iraqis want Americans shot on the spot and over 70% want Yankee to go home yesterday. So Bush wants the American people to believe he can leverage the Shiite-Iraqi elected government, so limited in power, that it is even afraid to exit the Green Zone. Under these circumstances, he expects the Shiite Iraqis to buckle under US pressure to kill Shiite militias by absurdly threatening US withdrawal – this is insanity – and even blind, "me too" Republican law makers are beginning to gag on this naked propaganda and deception. There is almost no chance the Maliki government will seriously cooperate in military operations against brother Shiites; it will of course, cooperate with killing Sunnis, but that is not what GW Bush has in mind, or is selling to promote a unified pro-American/Israeli Iraq. If the relations between the Maliki government and US forces continue to deteriorate, we could end up fighting the Iraqi government Bush created.

Apart from the uproar in Congress over Bush's new plan, there is little auspicious in Iraq concerning the employment of Iraqi forces to support the Bush plan to re-conquer Baghdad. Most recently, American forces were called in after Iraqi forces came under heavy fire by Sunni insurgents on Haifa Street in Baghdad, near the Green Zone. Fight lasted one day; ended inconclusively with at least six Iraqi Army soldiers killed as captives after surrendering, when they ran out of ammunition. To add more tension, the first choices of Iraqi generals by the Iraqi government to head operations in Baghdad have been rejected by the US command. This comes on the heels of a statement by the Iraq NSC chief blaming the US for Iraqi forces’ inadequacies in combat because of the poor training and flawed recruitment by the US command. Kurdish Talabani forces are being deployed to Baghdad to fight there. Most do not speak Arabic. Further, their performance against organized Sunni elements is unpredictable as Saddam slapped them around with impunity every time he engaged them. The other problem with Kurdish forces is that they are pro-Shiite as they have been allied to crush Sunni interests in Anbar province, so their reliability against al Sadr militia is suspect.

It is obvious that the enormity of the disaster of invading Iraq is finally sinking into Bush's skull. Misguided, he has handed over 60% of Iraq to the Iranian Ayatollahs along with its rich oil and water resources. Bush has declared mistakes were made and took responsibility. He was careful not to admit he made them, but he did big time.

His Middle Eastern policy disasters began right after the 9/11 attack. Bush was frightened; Rumsfeld's Pentagon was hit hard. Based on his press conferences and interviews, GWB is not a pressure player and his military record is not exactly a profile in courage. Desperately searching for a guide to action, he foolishly decided to turn the White House into a sort of Kibbutz. Using Israeli guidelines provided by the fanatically anti-Arab neocons and the influential Israeli Lobby, he trashed progress on the Palestine/Israeli peace accords, assented in Ariel Sharon's smashing of Arafat, encouraged and financed the building of a security wall dividing the West Bank, and supplied Israel with bunker busting and cluster bombs; with mainly neocon and Israeli Lobby urging as a political vanguard, he went off to war in Iraq, partially to solve the Israeli problem of Saddam's aid to Palestinian terrorists. He disgustingly stood by as Israel destroyed the Lebanese population and infrastructure with those bunker busting and cluster bombs he provided. And now it appears Bush is preparing to bomb Iran, because he thinks it solves another strategic problem for Israel: the Iranian Nucs and Hezbollah. This obsessive, one-sided support of Israel has cost him dearly internationally, and he has received little in return for his country unless you count the massive campaign contributions from grateful pro Israeli elements in the US. When will Bush fly the Star of David flag from the White House and play the Star Spangled Banner with a klezmer band? Pat Buchanan indicated a long time ago that Capitol Hill was occupied Israeli territory; at that time, he did not include the White House.

No one doubts Iran is supporting military activities against the US forces in Iraq. Bush’s response has been to position some USAF resources closer to Iraq and send carrier task forces to the Persian Gulf. He is also deploying Patriot missiles to the area. He rattled the saber further in his latest speech, and recently ordered the detainment of Iranian diplomatic personnel in Iraq. Expect a spirited reaction from the Persians.

If Bush wants to discourage Iranian interference in Iraq, he can close the borders and send special operations forces across into the country to smack their asses quietly in a focused, limited way... To bomb Iran on the the pretext of curbing Iranian interference in Iraq is preposterous; Bush teed up the problem with his foolish invasion. Bombing Iran is an over the top response much like destructive Israeli bombing in Lebanon cynically using captured Israeli prisoners as a casus belli. By the way, Israel, after bombs away, still has not succeeded in recovering those prisoners.

Even Bush's sometime intelligence chief Negroponte has recently reported the Israeli/US bombing in Lebanon was a failure, with Hezbollah and Iran coming out ahead. Bush and the frenetic screwballs advocating war with Iran do not seem to understand there are deadly consequences. Iran is not Serbia where you just drop bridges across the Danube, blow up TV stations, party headquarters, and some paprika canneries as the population rolls over. The Iranians will exact plenty of blood and oil for bombardment of its country. Iran with Venezuela is forming a 21st century variety of a COMINTERN of leftist regimes in Latin America right under Bush's nose. This, while he remains stuck to the Iraqi Tar Baby. Expect this fledgling group to react strongly to a Bush bombing of Iran. Let us hope Congress stops Bush on his next road to disaster. Do not expect the US military establishment to interfere; with General Shenseki going down with his ship, the rest of the military leadership has lost its moral compass, frightened over a threat to their own careers. As far as those blowhard retired generals who populate the TV shows as military experts, they do not count – they are talkers not walkers.

Hopeless Henry Kissinger has returned to the Bush White House disguised as a mumbling ornamental potted plant. As the bombing of Iran looms, it is easy to believe that the author of the pointless bombing of Laos, and Cambodia in the Vietnam war has had a nefarious role in a policy to bomb Iran... Hopeless Henry has taught us "peace is at hand"; prepare for the worst – bring out your mourning clothes.

No one questions that the US has a squalid situation in Iraq of its own making. No one doubts the flawed execution of the war. What is in question is what brought the country to the edge of chaos. Let us hope assessment for the crises is wrong. Stupid leadership and greed for oil are easier to fix than foreign penetration of the government. Colonel Robert E Bartos USA RET