Bush gets the boot

Well, not the boot, actually, but a couple of shoes thrown at him by an Iraqi journalist during a joint press conference with Iraqi prime minister Maliki during a surprise visit to Baghdad. In Arab culture throwing one's shoes at somebody is a sign of utmost disrespect, disgust, disapproval, disagreement and downright contempt. I remember when I was in Jerusalem an incident in the Al Aqsa Mosque where dozens of people threw their shoes at (I think I remember correctly) somebody threatening to do some kind of vandalism to the mosque.

I suspect the incident shows more about how most Iraqis view Bush than the polite words of support and courtesy coming from peoiple in the near-puppet Baghdad government.

Bushes Doles and Clintons out

My old colleague John Seiler makes the point that at least the election result means that after 28 years there's no Clinton or Dole as either president or vice president -- though Hillary, of course, is still in the Senate and probably planning for 2016 as we speak. Another interesting point several others have made is that with the defeat of Liddy Dole in the North Carolina senate race, this is the first time since 1948 -- 1948! -- that there hasn't been either a Bush or a Dole (or both much of the time) serving in an important position in the U.S. government.

And we thought we were getting away from dynasties and monarchical tendencies when we broke with Old Blighty!

No strategy in Iraq

President Bush's speech last week confirmed that the administration has no strategy except to hang on and pray things don't get worse before he has to hand off the mess to the next president. Bush is arrantly irresponsible with the lives and fortunes of Americans on a simply breathtaking scale.

Iraq: No strategy but holding on

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the appearances before Congress of Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Cooper on Tuesday. What he had to say and what Bush said today reinforces my impression that Bush simply intends to hang on until the end of the term and hand the mess over to the next president. I'm almost cynical enough to think he and the neocons have already prepared their rationale for future propaganda: We had Iraq in hand and victory just around the corner and those Democrats (or even McCain; these people are utterly without personal honor in my view) messed it up.

Bush's policies set up the Pakistan crisis

Almost all the news out of Pakistan these days is discouraging, with former prime minister and great American Hope Benazir Bhutto (who in some ways is no great prize; the corruption charges that led to her being exiled were not without substance) under house arrest again and the demonstrations she has tried to lead quashed. One of the sharper analyses of how Pakistan came to such a sad pass comes from Ivan Eland of the Independent Institute. He says the Bush administration exacerbated Pakistan's problems by occupying not one, but two Muslim countries. That created the best recruiting tool al-Qaida ever had, and the recruiting has easily outpaced the various campaigns against al-Qaida.

Stability won't be reached (and maybe not for quite a while even then) until we let Afghanistan be run by Afghans and reduce or end subsidies to Pakistan. In the early stages, around 2002, Musharraf gave us a tacit green light to go after al-Qaida and Taliban forces in the northwest provinces, but the administration was already focused on Iraq and dropped the ball. Since then our lavish subsidies have made most Pakistanis think Musharraf is a U.S. puppet, making him unpopular, ineffective and desperate. Nice work.