Borger: The genteel revolt that is remaking US policy on Iraq

[grytpype]

Withering article in the Guardian on the Republican revolt against Bush's Iraq policy. The elder Repubs have been complaining a long time, but Little Lord Pissypants ignored them and considered them traitors. So now they're trying another approach, being indirect and letting him save face. Maybe that will work.

George W. Bush is not an adult. Seriously.

And people are dying just so he can save his ass.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1928058,00.html

The genteel revolt that is remaking US policy on Iraq

Republican veterans push for end to interventionist approach

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday October 21, 2006
The Guardian

A "polite rebellion" is under way among previously loyal allies of President Bush aimed at persuading him to change course in Iraq and quietly abandon the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the centrepiece of his legacy.

Many senior Republicans believe the "Bush Doctrine" has hit a wall in Iraq and lies in ruins. The rebels, including many foreign policy veterans close to the president's father, see it as an obstacle to stabilising Iraq and extricating US forces. But they have decided that earlier, head-on challenges have only deepened the president's resolve, and a less confrontational approach was needed that avoided blame for past mistakes if there was to be any hope of a fundamental rethink.

"It's a polite rebellion by moderate and military-minded Republicans," said Steven Clemons, a Washington analyst. "Any walk-away from the Bush line is going to be covered with a lot of cosmetics to make it look like it's not really a big change."

The focus of the new approach is the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan commission co-chaired by the first President Bush's secretary of state, James Baker, which will present its recommendations after the November elections.

Those elections are another reason for urgency. If the Democrats capture the House of Representatives, as expected, they will be in a position to cut funding for the war if they are not listened to. Even if they fall short of an absolute majority in the Senate, there are now Republican senators signalling that they could side with the opposition if there is not a decisive rethink on Iraq. David Mack, a diplomat in the first Bush administration who helped rally Arab support for the Gulf War, said: "We are really at a point where any talk of victory is an illusion."

(more at article)

[Lindacooks]

1. Stubbornness and pig-headedness are not 'resolve'.

Good article, though.

[rodeodance]

2. Maybe Poppy told he would cut him out of his will if he does not listen

to Baker et al.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Cheney: "We're looking for victory,"

There is no consensus on the way out of Iraq among the president's critics while resistance to change is entrenched and led by Vice-President Dick Cheney."I know what the president thinks. I know what I think. And we're not looking for an exit strategy. We're looking for victory," Mr Cheney told Time magazine.

Perhaps the old Republican Guard will find a way to eliminate Cheney. It is the only way for them to get to Junior.

[arewenotdemo]

6. yeah. Cheney's the man behind the curtain

and he loves the carnage as much or even more than Bush does, if that's possible.

These are men who crave not sex or love, but death and destruction.

It's their aphrodisiac.

[Straight Shooter]

4. Save face? What face? He's disgraced and hated around the world.

Save his face, so that some poor kid from anywhere, U.S.A., can still get his face shot off?

Shove it in bush's face, I say, tell him he's a miserable failure, he always has been a miserable failure and he always will be a miserable failure, and put the grownups in charge.

Save face. F*ck that. This isn't a game of Monopoly.

[dbt]

7. Fuckin A!

What Straight Shooter says.

:bounce:
dbt
Remember New Orleans

[sutz12]

5. Prophetic...

>>the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the centrepiece of his legacy<<

Yep, it will be the centerpiece of his legacy. Bad policy. Bad legacy.

[leftchick]

8. this is really about cheney not bush....

and if anyone thinks he will agree to any change before the oil deal in December they are crazy...

<snip>

There is no consensus on the way out of Iraq among the president's critics while resistance to change is entrenched and led by Vice-President Dick Cheney."I know what the president thinks. I know what I think. And we're not looking for an exit strategy. We're looking for victory," Mr Cheney told Time magazine.

<snip>

The cautiousness with which this rebellion is proceeding is influenced not just by anxiety over alienating the president and entrenching resistance from Mr Cheney. It is also informed by an awareness that there are no good options left on the table.

[PunkPop]

9. These guys are just as culpable as pissypants himself

They're all paranoid rightwing fuckwads looting our treasury for the benefit their defense contractor buddies. They just don't suffer from the same psychoses as Asshole in Chief and have the basic ability to realize a mistake when they see it.

[Mountainman]

10. Yet wing nut radio is still linking Iraq war with 9/11. I heard Tammy

Bruce yesterday talking about the human remains found on the grounds of the 9/11 attack and that people need to remember 9/11 and that 9/11 is the reason we are fighting. She said the word "kill" about 10 times in one minute. She said that Americans are unhappy about the war in Iraq because we don't kill enough of the enemy. Basically she was trying to convince repukes not to stay home but to get out and vote. I had to turn it off.

[Warren Stupidity]

11. Truth and reconcilliation after a bit of bloodletting.

As rummy noted after they toppled old Saddam, we are going to have to get some things out of our system first, then we can settle down and work together to try and rebuild something that resembles a constitutional republic. First a whole lot of folks need to go to jail for a very long time.

[RedEarth]

12. KR

[rodeodance]

13. "is going to be covered with a lot of cosmetics"--don't want Jr to lose fa

ce now do we!

"It's a polite rebellion by moderate and military-minded Republicans," said Steven Clemons, a Washington analyst. "Any walk-away from the Bush line is going to be covered with a lot of cosmetics to make it look like it's not really a big change."

[grytpype]

14. Now Bush says there will be no change in strategy in Iraq.

The only goal in Iraq now is to save Bush's ass by hanging on until 2009. That's it. And any strategy will do to serve that goal, except withdrawing. Bush said so himself.

[rodeodance]

15. Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK

Here at home papers report on Bush "we will stay'---!!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1928037,00.html

Iraq mayhem triggers hunt for exit strategy in US and UK

Foreign Office urges talks with Syria and Iran, as militia seize city left by British

Ewen MacAskill, Julian Borger in Washington and Michael Howard in Sulaymaniya
Saturday October 21, 2006
The Guardian

Frantic efforts are under way in Washington and London to find an exit strategy for Iraq as a renewed surge in violence led George Bush to admit yesterday that tactics there might need to change.

Diplomats and politicians in both capitals are desperately reviewing and debating options that were once regarded as unthinkable.

The review was given added urgency yesterday when 800 gunmen, thought to be part of the Mahdi army militia, ran amok in Amara, a town transferred by the British to Iraqi control two months ago.

A source in the Amara police department said 30 officers and 20 civilians had been killed when the gunmen overran police stations and set up roadblocks. About 500 B

[rodeodance]

16. ""The failure of the Baghdad initiative is convincing evidence "

.....Among the changes the ISG is expected to recommend is the opening of talks on Iraq's future with Syria and Iran, countries the White House has sought to isolate.

"The failure of the Baghdad initiative is convincing evidence that a military solution is not going to work," said Larry Diamond, a former adviser to the US-led occupation authority in Baghdad who also advised the ISG. "We should be talking to neighbouring Arab states and we think we should be talking to Iran - to broker the compromises which might save the situation," Mr Diamond told the Guardian.

Other options being considered are a redeployment of forces to "super-bases" in Iraq or bases outside the country, pressuring the Baghdad government to find a fairer way of sharing Iraq's oil wealth to give Sunnis a better deal, and even the partitioning of the country into autonomous Kurdish, Sunni and Shia regions - an idea the White House has dismissed as a "non-starter".

[BOSSHOG]

17. What's a macho way to say cut and run?

While the republican strategists in Washington sit around with their thumbs up their asses trying hard to limit and contain the political damage of their decisions our kids continue to die. Good for the grand old party that their base of religiously insane zealots don't care that our kids are getting slaughtered on a daily basis. bush's supporters should be put on trial with him.

[PsN2Wind]

18. They can always go back to the old standards Chief

Bug-out or haulin' ass!!!

[aquart]

19. Redeployment.

We're going to redeploy our troops to New Jersey.

If Bush were lucky, which he no longer is, a big hurricane would devastate an entire US coast and he would be nobly forced to recall our troops to deal with the humanitarian disaster. That's how Republicans define luck.

Not even the weather wants anything to do with him this year.

[havocmom]

20. Declare victory and haul ass?

Our idiot CIC and his profiteering Sec of Defense have shown the world how easy it is to beat the greatest force in the world. Just let the invasion happen, let the invaders think they can roll in deep, then fight the guerrilla war.

Worked for George... WASHINGTON. Was a lesson George Armstrong Custer never got. Which one is gw bush most like?

bush/cheney/rumsfeld junta for corporate profits have destroyed this country. We stand more vulnerable now that at any time in modern times.

But stocks (of certain enterprises that do nothing to help mankind) are soaring.

[sweetheart]

21. Its kinda racist and gross

After seeing this video of iraq, i see how degenerate bush's america has become on the
cutting edge of policy; so blunt, it couldn't cut through butter.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/video/page/0,,1927660,00.html

[0007]

22. "Cut n Run" = "The U.S. Fox Trot"

Steps to bring the troops home


A road map drawn by a war criminal