As President Bush persists in trying to convince an increasingly sceptical American public of success in Iraq, the British public has already decided that Iraq is a failure. In the most recent poll, a clear majority view British withdrawal to their base at Basra airport as an indicator of that failure.
Meanwhile, in a surprise visit to a remote airfield far to the west of Baghdad, President Bush remained stubbornly fixed on victory in Iraq. However, if his advisers are to be believed, such a positive outcome might require ten years of American military effort. Even if one accepts such a rash declaration, will up to three succeeding American presidents view Iraq in the same way?
There appears to be a very similar phenomenon in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Political and military leaders speak in familiar double speak wherein “failure” becomes “success”, and “defeat” becomes “victory”. Upon leaving office, both of these governing castes take the opposite view. In particular, military commanders have initiated a blame game in which, predictably, Donald Rumsfeld is emerging as the fall guy.
Of course, there are others equally responsible, and their time will come, especially President Bush and his vice-president, the sinister Dick Cheney, along with their familiar Tony Blair. Yet this American duo have another sixteen months in office. Who knows what further havoc they can wreak in their myopic approach to international relations? If strong information from Washington is to be believed, they have an advanced plan for a “shock and awe” attack on 1200 military targets in Iran.
Such an attack, aided an abetted by their Israeli satrapy, is entirely credible. Not only does it fit in with American determination to prevent Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, it is also consistent with the personal world-view of the dynamic duo in charge of the United States Administration. Their approach says “Don’t mess with us”! whereby the United States has been metamorphosed into the flawed judgement of these two inadequate men.
Similarly, the idea of “payback” is intrinsic to their thinking. Thus, as former American ally Saddam needed to be paid back for the first Gulf War and an attempt on the life of the first president Bush, Ahmedinijad and the ayatollahs are to be held to account for the seizure of American hostages in 1979, and the subsequent American humiliation.
Less and less do we hear the arguments about Iran funding terrorists. As far as the west is concerned, they have never been in the same league as Gaddafi, now our friend, or the favoured Saudis. The Iranians’ principle crime is to fund their co-religionists in Hezbollah, upsetting the Israelis and their Washington apologists. Iran has certainly never tolerated Al Qaeda. Indeed, they helped the West in the clampdown on the Taleban in neighbouring Afghanistan, and have been publicly acknowledged by the Iraqi government as supportive and helpful in the efforts to stabilise that tragic place.
All the more peculiar, then, that as the lunatics of North Korea become America’s new friend, and as America’s old friend Pakistan, threatens to collapse into the first Islamic fundamentalist nuclear power, Sheriff Bush and his deputy should be gunning for Iran.
