Bush’s hollow impatience

March 30, 2006

Responding to a question about Iraq’s future, the president suggested he’s getting a little impatient with the progress — or lack thereof — in establishing a government in Iraq. His comments are in desperate need of a follow-up question.

“[T]here also has to be tangible benefits on the street. I try to speak to the Iraqi people all the time. Sometimes the message gets through the filters, sometimes it doesn’t. I want them to hear a couple of things. I want the Iraqi people to hear I’ve got great confidence in their capacity to self-govern. I also want to hear the — the Iraqi people to hear it’s about time you get a unity government going. In other words, Americans understand newcomers to the political arena, but pretty soon it’s time to shut her down and get governing.”

As Iraq pronouncements go, this one wasn’t terribly controversial, at least as far Dems go. Rumsfeld and Cheney preach patience and enjoy comparing Iraq’s development to 18th century America, but Bush’s line to Iraq that “it’s about time you get a unity government going” isn’t much different from what a lot of Bush’s critics might say.

My follow-up question, though, is, “Or what?”

The president sounded impatient. He wants Iraq to start functioning now and wants a unity government formed immediately. What’s more, based on his unscripted comments, Bush doesn’t just want Americans to hear about his frustration; he specifically said he wanted “the Iraqi people to hear” his sense of frustration.

What Bush didn’t mention was the result of additional delay. He wants Iraq to know his expectations, but not to hear a word about consequences. If Iraq doesn’t “get governing,” what happens? Will U.S. troops be withdrawn? According to Bush, absolutely not. Will the U.S. establish some deadlines or timelines for progress? Bush rejects the notion out of hand.

In this sense, Bush’s comments were entirely meaningless. It’s like the old joke about the unarmed policeman seeing a criminal and shouting, “Stop! Or I’ll say ‘Stop’ again!” Bush says, “Form a unity government! Or I might ask again sometime soon!”

It also points to why timetables and target dates aren’t just tolerable in Iraq; they’re necessary. It’s worked before — Iraqis completed their Constitution under an arbitrary American-defined deadline — and it could work again.

Here’s the idea: tell the Iraqis to form a government by May 1st or troop withdrawals begin on May 2nd. I bet Bush would be amazed at how quickly negotiations can proceed.

I think you have that backwards. If you tell them to have a government by May 1, or we leave on May 2, all the leaders call each other and agree not to do anything until May 3.

  • paper tiger
    One that is seemingly dangerous and powerful but is in fact timid and weak: “They are paper tigers, weak and indecisive” (Frederick Forsyth).

  • It is amazing to me, how quickly the failure of the Iraq reconstruction goes down even a Democratic memory hole.

    “Or what?” should not be mindlessly modeled on a scolding parent, without reference to factors on the ground, such as the massive unemployment in Iraq, the inadequacy of basic infrastructure (electricity, water), the pitiful state of the vital oil industry, or the pathetic state of Iraqi institutions (police, Army, public health). Bush has said he will spend no more money, after squandering billions in corrupt and ineffective reconstruction efforts, “losing” x billions of Iraqi oil money altogether in the process.

    From the beginning, Bush has been unable or unwilling to make an adequate effort. There were not enough coalition troops to secure the country, and prevent massive looting and lawlessness, or secure existing stockpiles of munitions. And, that pattern continues today. What good will it do, to form a government, when that government will not have an Army or police force with which to work its will?

    The U.S. effort in Iraq has been like buying lottery tickets as a financial retirement strategy. Sure, it might turn out all right in the end, and you won’t “know the outcome” until it comes time to retire, but, really, it is a crazy way to proceed, even if it does permit you to skimp on retirement savings.

    Bush has never been willing to devote the resources and attention necessary to control the situation. And, he is especially not willing to do so, now.

    Making a cheap rhetorical point about the value of deadlines is silly. Bush is not going to set a deadline, because he does not want to withdraw U.S. forces. The whole point of the invasion was to create a permanent U.S. presence. The Iraqi government has to be kept weak. A strong Iraqi government would not need the coalition forces to substitute for their own Army and police, and not needing the U.S., would throw the U.S. out in a heartbeat.

    Create a reasonably strong Iraq, and Iraq will expel the U.S. There will be no need for timetables; the Iraqis will give us one: tomorrow.

    Instead of this simple insight, we get a completely false dilemma: do we stay indefinitely, supporting a weak Iraq (the desired Bush outcome) or do we withdraw, allowing a weak Iraq to collapse into chaos or Iranian domination?

  • Only Bush’s cronies in Iraq, and they are very few in number, want us to stay so they are not immediately executed. So, I don’t think Bush is threatening withdrawal. You can’t get their oil cheap and withdraw at the same time. So what is the “or else’? Bombing them into submission and taking over what’s left of the country? I’m sure the Bush administration, famous for not making a contingency plan, has no idea what to do next. But what ever it is, it will be a bad idea, based on a complete lack of understanding of the situation. If history serves, that’s the only certainty.

  • Funny, I thought the goal was to establish a democracy, not a “unity” government. But then no serious person ever believed the Bush Administration supports democracy. I wonder if they prefer single party rule, a al the Soviet Union, or another tyrant like Hussein.

  • George Dubai-ya Bush just doesn’t care about the real world. I assume the Iraqis would be happier with dependable water and electricty, e.g., than with a “unity” government, unachieveable in a tribally divided artificially drawn nation-state.

    Shrubie wants the Iraqi people (those who survived his shock and awe anyway) to behave like trained monkeys. They won’t. At least not as his trained monkeys

    Meanwhile, the quagmire continues to suck in the same number of deaths and life-altering injuries, not to mention a couple billion of our (borrowed) dollars a week, and the Regal Moron’s minions continue to bleat about progress.

  • Bruce,
    I think you’ve figured it out.

    Denying the Iraqi government any actual infrastructure to enforce its authority is pretty clearly a sign that the White House wants to keep the Iraqis perpetually dependent on us. And, better still, Bush can blame them for disorder and lack of progress into the bargain. After all, didn’t he just tell them to form a government? Wow! Bush should write a book on leadership!

  • “I try to speak to the Iraqi people all the time. Sometimes the message gets through the filters, sometimes it doesn’t.”

    Umm, you’re not the president of Iraq, you know.

    Plus, what “filters”? How many BILLIONS of American taxpayer dollars is the Pentagon putting into propaganda “reporting”? And somehow the White House’s message isn’t getting out to the Iraqi people?

    Lastly, what right does this clown have to be impatient with the Iraqi people, when Bush’s already decided he’s going to leave the mess in Iraq to the next guy?

  • Bruce makes a strong point. What this whole adventure has been lacking is a strong commitment to make things happen, decisive leadership and honesty with both the Iraqis and the Americans. By continually spouting that we’re only over there to spread freedom and democracy, nobody knows what what our goals should be at this point. Do we leave as soon as a governemnt is formed or do we stay until the nation is stable? Bush’s vague platitudes are coming back to haunt him (and us.)

    This debacle is Bush’s leadership in a nutshell: policy is only posturing and rhetoric and not a firm commitment, a desire to do things “on the cheap” without paying the true costs and without sacrifice and a basic dishonesty about their true intentions. To Bush, every problem is simply a PR issue that can be fixed by speeches and talking on the Sunday morning political programs.

    Fixing Iraq will take some seriously hard work and a significant amount of time. By blowing the time he already had claiming there were no problems and squandering billions with no meaningful results, Bush has blown any chance of a positive outcome. Bush is just plain incompetent.

  • I think Bruce Wilder and Flibble are right on the money…

    The whole point of Bush’s Iraq adventure is to create a dependent petro-banana republic with an open-ended US presence.

    Bush has never revealed his true intentions to the American public nor can he – instead he couches his rhetoric to the effect that we’re working to “install” democracy over there.

    And the sad thing is that Cheney and Co. think the occupation is a success because we have nominal control over their oil…

  • Many good points here.

    Bush doesn’t seem to know what he wants. It’s almost as if he’s saying things when the mood strikes him, which itself is unusual, because it makes you wonder what kind of message Rove wants to project.

    Are we going to hand everything off to the next President? Or “hurry up” and get it all done right away? Maybe Bush will come up with a third option tomorrow.

    When Bush gets agitated, his diction becomes even more mangled than usual. In the space of that one paragraph CB quotes, Bush substitutes a singular verb for a plural (“there has to be benefits”), he refers three times to “the Iraqi people” the way he often falls back on “the American people,” he mixes up pronouns (“it’s about time you get a unity government going,” “it’s time to shut her down,”) he name-calls the Iraqis “newcomers to the political arena,” and as always, while sounding vaguely threatening, he keeps referring everything back to himself (“I try,” “I want,” “I want,” “I’ve got,” “I want”).

  • JohnnyB wrote: “Bush doesn’t seem to know what he wants.”

    I don’t know if I’d necessarily agree with that. Or, put differently, I would only agree with that if all I had to go on was the rhetoric. If you want to divine one’s true objectives, look at the deeds and figure out who benefits.

    Iraq has no infrastructure–who benefits? US troops doing nothing to create order except to secure the oil–who benefits? We use torture–who benefits? We’re establishing bases–who benefits?

    When looked at like this, and ignoring the rhetoric, it’s pretty clear that the Iraq operation was imperialism (or aggressive war) through and through. Bush’s difficulty, I think, comes from the fact that he cannot give the honest reasons unless he wants to wind up before a war crimes tribunal. So he is in the same position Scottie boy is in everyday, having to lie and do contortions. And thus looks pretty stupid, because the situation is so baldfaced obvious that it would take a progeny to spin it effectively now.

  • I think it would be amusing if the Iraqi turned around and demanded that Rumsfeld be replaced with a Democrat to demonstrate Bush’s commitment to a ‘Unity’ government 😉

  • the idea that this pathetic little man whose whole regime has been based on the premise of being a divider and not a uniter should call on the iraqis to form a “national unity” government as the outgrowth of the great purple finger moment is just beyond my humble powers of description….

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