Bush's Trip

As Democrats prepare to take control of both Congressional houses, President Bush apparently feels it best to just stay out of town.

His trip this week, after returning from Asia last week, will be to a NATO meeting in Latvia and a meeting with the Iraqi President in Jordan. Latvia is appropriate. With the announcement during the past week that our Polish and Italian allies will be withdrawing the remainder of their Iraqi forces in 2007 and the UK announcement that it expects to reduce its already diminished presence of 7,000 by "some thousands" in the coming year, Latvia has vaulted into the position of "critical ally" in the ongoing war in terror in Iraq.

The War on Terror in Iraq has degenerated into civil war. It's one thing to be there killing members of international terrorist groups such as AlQaeda; its another thing to be there killing quarrelsome Iraqis fighting among themselves to see which crazy Mullah will become "the power behind the throne" of the "democratic government." If there is any logic left to our presence, it lies in the hope that eventually all of the crazies will kill each other off and allow for a stable, middle class Iraqi society to emerge as a regional "democratic paradise." And, if you believe that, you probably also believe there are forty virgins waiting for you in heaven.

Iraq has evolved, through virtually every fault of our own, from "the center stage in the War on Terror, " to the center piece of Bush's new "nation building" diplomacy. And, although Vietnam may not be an exact parallel, it was this same mentality of "we can accomplish anything we want, anywhere," that led to twenty plus years of frustration, untold billions of dollars wasted, and 50,000 dead Americans.

Indeed, the sole "reason" for the Iraqi invasion now lies in this policy, nation building. Powell was absolutely right, "if you break it, you own it." No WMD, no 9/11 connection, no post invasion stability. And, most of those (save the elected Cheney) who advocated the invasion, from Iraqi ex-patriots who had hoped to seize power now back in London or whereever, to Richard Pearle, now outside the Administration complaining about incompetence, are gone.

The one positive aspect of Iraq is that we have NOT been there 20 years or lost 50,000 dead Americans...yet. The two decade long agony of Vietnam (now, according to Bush, one of the "young tigers" of Asia) has been compressed in three and half years in Iraq. The November election reminds me of the old phrase: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

The fact that Bush is meeting with the Iraqi President in Jordan, not Baghdad, says everything.