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July 11, 2007
So the retreat from Iraq has begun. We have reached the beginning of the end game of a war that was sold as a war of liberation to free an oppressed people from a murderous and dangerous despot, but which descended quickly into a civil war. So endth the neo-con crusade led by Cheney and Bush:
Geoff Pryor
The Prime Minister John Howard defiantly says he is standing firm in his commitment to the Iraq war despite growing pressure on US President George W. Bush from members of his own Republican party for a change in strategy.Sounds like Custer's Last Stand to me.
This means continuing with a highly pugnacious, nationalist, fear-based, and unilateral foreign policy that keeps our country on the offense in the Terrorists' War on Us.It's a Rovian tagline, but an appropriate one for Howard. The Coalition may claim that Iraq won't be an issue in the 2008 election, but that's just spin and they know it.
The language of the “global war on terror”, which is what America calls its response to the September 11th attacks, needs to be dropped. The Economist argues that the idea of a “global war on terror” is an over-simplificiation:
Shortened to the acronym GWOT, it conflated the military campaign against al-Qaeda and its Taliban sponsors in Afghanistan in 2001 with the war two years later to overthrow Saddam Hussein, an old foe who almost certainly had nothing to do with September 11th. That Iraq is a magnet for al-Qaeda is the result of the invasion of Iraq, not its cause. GWOT also implies, wrongly, that there exists a military solution to a problem that for a few countries (eg, Afghanistan) requires a co-ordinated nation-building effort but for most demands patient police and intelligence work. “War” should be the exception, not the focus of the effort against terrorists
The Washington neocons are holding firm. In the Weekly Standard William Kristol says:
The best strategy for the president is to hold firm. There is every reason to believe that he can survive the current calamity-Janes of the Republican party (does anyone really imagine that a veto-proof majority will form in the Senate this week or next?). This nonsense will pass, Congress will go on recess, and Petraeus will have a chance to continue to produce results--and the president and his allies will have a chance to gain political ground here at home. Why on earth pull the plug now? Why give in to an insane, irrational panic that will destroy the Bush administration and most likely sweep the Republican party to ruin? The president still has a chance to emerge from this as a visionary who could see what the left could not--but not if he gives in to them. There is no safety in the position some in the Bush administration are running towards.
This kind of resistance is definitely in the tradition of Custer's Last Stand. So is The Australian's editorial about of the “Iraq” part of the Newspoll, saying that “staying the course” was the most popular option from respondents.
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Pryor's foray into apocolypsism is pure Classic/ Hollywood. Possibly a tribute to a similar effort from a few years ago that provided the cover for a "Dissent" edition?
As the Nelson cartoon of a few threads back demonstrates, variations on the theme are redolent of cartooning; tremendously effective.
Is there any caricturist who comes remotely close to Pryor ( on a good day, that is ), whenit comes to "capturing" Howard?