The lead story on the front page of today’s Washington Times pointed to a Bush statement that probably wasn’t intended to be comical, but was.
President Bush yesterday told Syria and Iran to stop meddling in Iraq, as the Iraqi defense minister accused his nation’s two neighbors of aiding a terrorist insurgency to disrupt elections set to take place in six weeks.
“We will continue to make it clear to both Syria and Iran that … meddling in the internal affairs of Iraq is not in their interests,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office at the end of a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
To be sure, for the safety of our troops and the stability of the region, I hope Syria and Iran steer clear of Iraq altogether. But I can’t help but marvel at the irony of Bush telling other countries not to “meddle.” It was, after all, the United States that invaded the country under false pretenses, hand-picked Iraq’s new leaders, continues to help run the fledgling government’s operations, and will be writing the country’s new constitution.
And Bush is against others meddling in Iraq? Why, because he wants to do all the meddling himself?