We are so over George W. Bush that he can make startling and outrageous claims and we barely notice.
I know people are saying we should have left things the way they were, but I changed after 9/11. I had to act. I don’t care if it created more enemies. I had to act.
That’s the spirit: full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes! He couldn’t stand to think of himself as a President who studied the situation and made a considered choice, as opposed to one who sprung into immediate destructive action in useless directions. At least he acted; no one can say he didn’t.
This is the great war of our times. It is going to take forty years…
Otherwise we wouldn’t need those 50 permanent bases (they’re not even bothering to call them “enduring” any more), continued immunity from Iraqi law, the ability to detain Iraqis unilaterally, and control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000 feet. Which of course should not be seen as detracting from Iraqi sovereignty any more than, say, Roman control of Greece detracted from Greek freedom. And really we don’t need permanent bases; we’ll leave when the oil runs out.
Fortunately there are signs of progress.
I think the election of Hamas was a good thing. It proved to Abbas he was failing. I told Abbas, “You lost the election because you aren’t providing for your people, jobs, education, what people want.” Now they know they have to compete.
That’s right, all anyone’s asking for is a fair playing field. Abbas has got to make use of those resources he’s sitting on to better the lives of the Palestinian people. Like Bush did for the American people.
One thing that strikes me, not unexpectedly, is that Bush doesn’t even consider the possibility that it wasn’t so much Abbas as Bush who was failing. Certainly failure was happening; as Reagan famously read, “Mistakes were made”. Fortunately not by anyone, so no one had to be fired.
So what’s the problem?
The problem is Olmert. This is a man who came to power on a promise that he was going to unilaterally define a Palestinian state. You can’t pressure democracies.
And democracies don’t start wars, either. Nor do they elect the frankly delusionary. All, in short, is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
