Jim Hoagland reports on the growing estrangement between the Bush administration and our most important Middle East allies. Here’s the synopsis. Bush had planned a White House gala for April 17, honoring King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Prince Bandar has just announced that the King won’t be attending because the date ‘isn’t convenient’. Meanwhile, Jordan’s King Abdullah has announced that he will not be making a previously scheduled state visit in September.
Hoagland attempts to explain the reasoning of the two King Abdullahs, but he isn’t really sure. It basically comes down to not wanting to associate with a loser. Or, as one friend of Condi Rice puts it, a corpse.
Rice had hoped the [Arab] summit [in Riyadh this weekend] would provide a boost in her current proximity talks with Israeli and Palestinian officials, but she appears to have struck a dry well. “She is conducting crisis management, not grand diplomacy,” a European official who talked to her recently said disappointedly.
Adds an admirer who tracks Rice’s intentions and assessments in the Middle East: “Condi is doing everything she can. But she is dancing with a corpse that just keeps flopping over in another direction every time she tries to move it.”
Hoagland also hits on another theme that I have been stressing for quite a while. And that theme is that no country has ever launched a war of aggression, lost that war, and then let the architects of the disaster stick around to manage the aftermath. It isn’t done, and for good reason.
But the Saudis, too, know how to read election returns. They see Bush swimming against a tide of scandal and stench that engulfs his most trusted aides. In the traditional Saudi worldview, this is a moment to hedge, not to indulge in the kind of leadership needed to break the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock or the deadly morass of Iraq.
What more do we need to read the writing on the wall? Impeaching Bush and Cheney can be done for reasons great or small. I don’t really care what the actual reasoning is. But when our closest allies in the Middle East show our President this level of disrespect it should be obvious that he can accomplish nothing positive for our country even if he were to start pursuing sane goals. His credibility is shot.
The logic is this is very strong. As long as we were pursuing a war in Iraq, Bush’s cheerleading had some utility. But now that Congress has declared the war lost, we have no further need for Bush or Cheney. Their gambit failed and failed catastrophically. Our entire Middle East policy has to be scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up.
It is actually an irresponsible thing to do to end this war and allow Bush and Cheney to manage the withdrawal. It is a deeply irresponsible thing to do. Any sane Congress would realize this and jettison Bush/Cheney in favor of some Baker/Hamilton-esque caretaker government.
Impeachment and withdrawal are two pieces of the same policy. One without the other makes no sense. They must be pursued in concert.
More frog-marching please.
also in orange.
Now if only you can convert Reid and Pelosi …
yep, the writing is on the wall, so to speak! However, they will not read it like it is written. They will make all kinds of excuses for this and will not face the facts as it is. What a dumb and incoherent bunch of ppl ever! They really do not care about any of them, including saudi arbia. They have this mistaken idea they control the world. This is just how sick our government has become. I seriously doubt that any of us will ever see the correction of this in our lifetimes. Such a sad prognosis.
There’s no way those guys are going to last another 18 months in the WH. And there’s no way they’re going to leave gracefully, either.
Can anybody think of anything they’ve done in the last 6 years that hasn’t been totally FUBAR in the end? I’m trying to think of 1 positive accomplishment of BushCo, and I can’t.
They have been wildly successful at their states goals. I think we all know what their stated goals were; they include enrichment of the upper classes at the expense of the working poor and the marginalization of government in favor of private enterprise — and that’s just the domestic agenda.
We need to push that POV as hard and as often as we can. Rather than failing, the Bushites have been successful beyond their wildest dreams — and the current state of our country is the result of their success. And if you (the collective American you) don’t want to see it happen again, you’ll find out which candidates support Bushism and run the other way. With luck the Democrats will be able to run against Bush for the next couple of generations.
in congress thinking these days? Are they still drinking the kool-aid or looking for an exit strategy? I spect we will have another party come in place of the repub party cause this one has played its course plumb thru to disaster.
Is there an anchor we can throw these guys to speed up the exit? I know, I know, what more will come up in the investigations? How much more slime will we see oozing out of the wh? And will pundits care?
Condi has an admirer? Probably some resident of Creedmoor.
indeed.
I am very pleased with the pace of the oversite investigations. I do not believe that this group will last another 2 years. We need to have patience though. The American people need to come to the conclusion that impeachment is absolutely necessary. It can’t be seen as partisan. Eventually (and I don’t think this is going to be too far in the future) the necessity to impeach will become apparent to everyone (save that 28% diehards). There is a cancer on the presidency….
You would have to sell the CIA on the benefits of a Bushless world, then perhaps they would “do a Kennedy” on him.
The winds of change are blowing from Latin America to the Middle East to Asia and Europe.Those winds bring bad news for US puppets everywhere and they are taking cover because the Madame Defarges in all these countries have taken out their knitting needles.
The malignancy that has always existed under the outward health of this country’s skin has been exposed with the Bush regime’s marauding march throughout the world.
The world is saying:We are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore.
At least the Arab puppets have started listening.