At the end of yet another Friedman

May 31, 2007

After the midterm elections, it became common to hear Republicans say that Bush had maybe another six months to turn things around in Iraq. By the time the so-called “surge” was announced in January, that talk became louder.

Atrios, however, has done a very impressive job of keeping track of some of those deadlines. And wouldn’t you know it, time’s up.

Here, for example, is an item from Nov. 30, 2006:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Thursday that his country’s forces would be able to assume security command by June 2007 — which could allow the United States to start withdrawing its troops.

“I cannot answer on behalf of the U.S. administration but I can tell you that from our side our forces will be ready by June 2007,” Maliki told ABC television after meeting President Bush on Thursday in Jordan. (emphasis added)

And here’s another, two months later, on Jan. 30, 2007:

Even Republicans supporting President Bush’s new Iraq strategy have been saying this is the last chance for the Iraqi government, and there may be an underlying message for the President there as well. US News Political Bulletin hears from GOP strategists with close ties to Capitol Hill that the President and his senior aides are too optimistic about keeping GOP congressional support for the Iraq war over the long term. One senior Republican adviser says Bush has “until April or May” to improve things in Iraq. If he cannot, he could face a GOP rebellion that could result in reductions in spending for the conflict and legislation to start bringing the troops home. (emphasis added)

The sad thing, beyond the obvious tragedy, is that these exact same people are going to say the exact same thing for the rest of the year. Let’s give it until September. September’s here? Well, let’s at least give it through the end of the year. 2008 is here? Let’s revisit in the spring. Or the late summer. Or around the election. Or around the next inauguration.

The accountability moment never comes. And with Bush in office, it almost certainly never will.

and with the chicken democrats in congress, it almost certainly never will.

  • I do think the Republicans in congress will revolt soon, because their jobs are on the line. Many of them know they’re dead meat if they keep backing this war.

    But we’re still addicted to cheap oil, and getting the power people to leave the world’s 2nd biggest supply in the hands of an Iranian proxy state might be difficult.

  • Barry McCaffrey on NPR this morning essentially said that the Bush administration would have its way with Irq policy while it remains in office.

    I think this is largely correct. It is very difficult to stop the President from waging war if that is his determination. Can anyone cite an example where a US president was stopped? Vietnam? I don’t think so.

    However, McCaffrey also said that both the regular army and the reserves would be breaking down by the fall.

  • I am becoming more and more convinced that war with Iran is just around the corner.

    The Surge, in my opinion, is just cover for a build-up of troops in the region before the invasion…very similar to the build-up we had prior to the invasion of Iraq. We already have a strong contingent of ships off the coast now. The recent “diplomatic discussions” with Iran are all for show and will give us an excuse to attack when they break-down, just as it did in Iraq with the UN weapons inspectors.

    Here is an article that makes the same points, published back in Oct. 2006.:
    But all these war skeptics may be whistling past the graveyard. After all, it must be recalled that Bush also talked about seeking diplomatic solutions the whole time he was dead-set on invading Iraq, and the current situation is increasingly looking like a cheap Hollywood sequel. The United States, according to Gardiner and others, already reportedly has special forces operating in Iran, and now major ship movements are looking ominous.

    War with Iran, of course, would ensure that Bush will have set up the Middle East so thathis successor could not get out of “our country’s destiny.”

    War by Fall, if not before….

    There go the deadlines and benchmarks.

  • Gridlock, I don’t think our military is crazy enough to launch another war when they don’t have enough armor to cover their asses in the war we have going on.

    Bush might be, but they’re not.

  • Racerx (@5),

    But would they consider an open rebellion against the Commander-in-Chief? The military takes their orders from civillians, however crazy the civillian in question might be. They’re trained to do it, they’re used to it. If he tells them to “bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran”, they will. And it wouldn’t need ground forces, either, until it was too late.

  • The only way that we could have war with Iran is if there is some trumped-up, phony attack on the United States by Iran, such as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident or the sinking of the Main.

    I really think that there would be open rebelion in the services if Cheney and Bush tried the pre-emptive alternative.

  • Someone should make a scrapbook for Tim Russert, then hold a press conference and pubically offer it to him.

    Anyway, remember next year is an election year. And after last November, even some Republicans will finally be getting it through their pointy little heads that a lot of Americans think war = bad. So come the Fall, certainly the temptation to take another Friedman will still be there, but I dare hope a stronger desire to save their own scaly hides will peel off enough Republicans to pass a spending bill with some real deadlines on a veto-proof majority. A few are already on record with statements that can be used to hold their feet tot the fire as a result of the last push. People will also be more used to the idea now that we’ve had the discussion once.

  • I also heard the McCaffrey interview on NPR the other day (NeilS, #3), and in addition to lamenting the state of the army and noting Bush’s power to continue regardless, McCaffrey also ended with the idea that we would know in another Friedman-unit. He suggested that by November or December 2007, we’d really see how things were going.

    His point was to downplay Petraeus’ required and much anticipated ‘report’ deadline in September.

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