I don't write too much about Presidential politics, but two events prodded me to do so. First was that British PM Tony Blair announced he was stepping down from power on June 27, 2007, an issue I will not write about now. The second was the bizarre reaction of some in the Republican Party to Congressman Ron Paul's suggestion that U.S. foreign policy as was conducted in the Middle East in the years leading up to September 11, 2001 was a factor in the decision by Al Queda to strike U.S. homeland targets.
This write up on Reason Magazine has a stark rundown on the overall situation. Briefly, Mr. Paul had a confrontation with former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani in a public debate over the matter. Giuliani said that he had never heard of that before. Hmmm...
I will leave this epistle with a copy of the Reason commentary comparing the statements of Cato Institute scholars verses statements made by leading figures in the Bush Administration.
Cato personnel:
Gene Healy: "After our quick victory, and after the "Arab street" fails to rise, you're going to hear a lot of self-congratulation from the hawks. But the fallout from this war is likely to be long-term, in the form of a protracted and messy occupation, and an enhanced terrorist recruitment base."
Ted Galen Carpenter:"The inevitable U.S. military victory would not be the end of America's troubles in Iraq. Indeed, it would mark the start of a new round of headaches. Ousting Saddam would make Washington responsible for Iraq's political future and entangle the United States in an endless nation-building mission beset by intractable problems."
Bush Administration officials:
Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz: "We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."
• Vice President Dick Cheney: "I don't think it would be that tough a fight."
• White House economic advisor Glenn Hubbard: "Costs of any [Iraq] intervention would be very small."
• OMB Director Mitch Daniels: "The United States is committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will not require sustained aid."
Mr. Paul came in third in a text message poll conducted after the debate. Sadly he lags in the polls. Mercifully though Mr. Paul is not being subject to the time honored practice of using government as a means of shutting out of the competition, in this case via banning him from participating in future debates or by drumming him out of the Party. Still, Mr. Paul may well be prescient with his notion that the Republican Party will not win the Presidency in 2008 by pursuing the same old foreign policy which the Bushies have been following.
History shows that once Presidents get America stuck in wars, it is usually up to their successors to get America out. This happened with Johnson in Vietnam, where Nixon ended up getting America out. It also happened in Korea where Truman got us in there, but Eisenhower got us out. Based on this, I have felt Mr. Bush will make sure that America stays in his military adventure until he leaves office and leave the job of devising an exit strategy to his successor.
There are other reasons I have felt that Bush would stick out Iraq until he leaves office. One is that the war bleeds away money from other government programs. It also is a matter of point that it is nearly impossible to ever get a politician to say that they did the wrong thing. A while back Senator Robert Byrd said that he had been wrong about America's changing attitudes towards Civil Rights in the 1960's. Otherwise, he had made the right decision on every one of his 10,000+ votes he had made as a Senator. Wow! All I can say is that is not a bad track record. And I thought I was wise and powerful...
Wizard
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at May 24, 2007 12:19 AM