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January 05, 2007
Immanuel Wallerstein has an op-ed in The Canberra Times on President Bush's search for a "new strategy" for "victory" in Iraq. He says:
Given all the hints and leaks, there are few people waiting breathlessly for the presidential speech in which he will reveal his decisions. The new strategy promises to be the old strategy, with perhaps an additional small number of US troops in Baghdad.....Bush will push through the plan for more US troops. This will make no military difference. If the US sent in 300,000 troops, it might quash both the insurgency and the civil war. But sending in even 30,000 troops will be an incredible strain on the viability and morale of the US military. By June 2007, at the latest, it will be clear to even the most stubbornly blind, like Bush and the surviving neo-cons, that the US is in a dead end and bleeding badly.
Peter Brookes
Wallerstein asks:
Why doesn't Bush cut his losses? He can't. His entire presidency revolves around the Iraq war. If he tries to cut his losses, he admits that he is responsible for a national disaster. So he has no choice but to try to bluff his way into 2009 and turn over the disaster to someone else. That is, he has no choice acceptable to him.
That captures the neo-con stubborness of 'staying the course.' Wallerstein does not mention the imperatives of empire as the reason for having to stay the course.
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Bush's challenge to critics to "come up with their own strategy" to stop the violence in Baghdad is summed up in the bumper sticker: Bush, the President Of Iraq? The Decider has proved incapable of making decisions that benefit our country in any way, while concentrating his efforts to "benefit" Iraq. Wallerstein is right: this escalation is purely political cover for his own historical ass, to avoid the obvious fact of his dismal failure as a U.S. President. Not only must Congress cut the funds for war and fund only a troop withdrawal, but move quickly to impeach in order to prevent any further harm to our country. 70% of our own troops believe that the violence will subside ONLY when we LEAVE Iraq.