A Surge of Stubbornness

One of the hallmarks of the Bush administration has been its uncanny ability to confuse stubbornness with leadership. Bush’s response to his repeated failures in Iraq has been to stubbornly refuse to admit the obvious reality. When late last year he was finally forced to admit that the US was losing in Iraq, he stubbornly refused to change course.

The myopic obstinacy required to surge full steam ahead in the face of repeated failures also characterizes the latest Bush strategy for Iraq, described as a surge of American military power.

I think it is a surge of stubbornness in the face of accumulated defeats; and it starting to worry the American establishment.

Former National Security Advisor to President Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski recently wrote that Bush was waging a colonial war in Iraq, which he was bound to lose.

The New York Times, which helped the propaganda for the Iraq war, lamented the Bush administration’s “assault on the rule of law,” and its “willingness to con the public.” (January 27, 07).

The Washington Post, which supported the war, wrote that Bush and his group had lost credibility even among republicans. (Feb 7.07)

The establishment is concerned that the many failures of the Bush administration in the Middle East may have reached a point where they are causing irreparable damage to traditional American interests in the region.

First there was the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction whose alleged existence in Iraq was ostensibly used to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

The damage to the Bush administration’s credibility was substantial, particularly in view of the fact that although manipulation and indeed fabrication of the evidence to go to war have been widely recognized, no one was held accountable. This damaged not only American credibility around the world it also damaged the image of American democracy.

Then there was the failure of the Bush administration project to transform the Middle East into Jeffersonian democracy on the American image. Although few people expected that to happen, and American allies in the region resisted the project, the Bush administration briefly promoted the democracy project as its principal goal in Iraq (Now it is simply seeking to secure Baghdad).

But the brutality of the occupation, the Abu Ghraib scandal, the killing of civilians, the seemingly unstoppable cycle of violence and growing sectarian strife, and the cheer weight of the collapsed infrastructures of life in Iraq quickly overwhelmed whatever support the Iraqi people may have had for the American-sanctioned democracy project.

Then there was the failure of the roadmap, the ‘peace plan’ for the Middle East endorsed by the USA, Russia, the European Union, and the United Nations. Bush’s gross bias for Israel and little interest in justice for the Palestinian were well known.

What was unexpected was the Bush administration’s brazen support for the Israeli policy of actively subverting the roadmap by continuing settlement activities and engaging in unilateral actions. (NYT August 21, 04)

In effect, with the Bush administration support, the roadmap became a password for equivocation while the Israelis actively engaged in stealing more Palestinian land. This was unashamedly admitted by Sharon’s senior advisor Dov Weissglas who proudly affirmed that this whole package of the roadmap, ”has been removed from our agenda indefinitely.” (Haaretz, Oct 8, 04)

Bush managed to win a second term and proceeded to squander his ‘political capital’ with an aggressive campaign to engineer consent for the implementation of the neo conservative agenda of regime change in Iran, and Syria.

In January  2005, Vice President Cheney was already saying that Washington’s chief concern was not democracy, was not even terrorism, but Iran’s “fairly robust new nuclear program.” Stories circulated in the press that special American forces were already inside Iran, and that the Bush war plan for Iran included the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

This provoked widespread opposition from the establishment particularly from the American Joint Chiefs who warned against the unpredictable consequences of using nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration also failed in its calculation that its axis of destruction with Israel in waging total war in Lebanon against Hizbollah, would bring swift victory to the Israeli Middle East war plans, and soften up Iran for a possible strike. It only brought death and destruction to Lebanon, humbled the Israeli warmongering machine, and brought further discredit to the United States in the Arab and Muslim world.

In the November 2006 midterm elections the American people sent a clear message to the Bush administration that they do not support war in Iraq, and want troop withdrawal.

Around the same time a panel of distinguished veterans of the power circles in Washington called the Iraq Study Group, delivered the most articulate repudiation by the establishment of the Bush foreign policy in the Middle East and of its ill-conceived neo-conservative ideological foundations. It warned that the situation in Iraq was grave and deteriorating, and urged some withdrawal of American troops from Iraq, negotiations with Syria and Iran, and active engagement to solve the Palestine-Israel conflict.

Bush refused to listen. Rejecting the way out offered by the establishment in the Baker-Hamilton Commission, Bush adopted the neo-conservatives’ prescription for crushing opposition to American global domination: war escalation.

In the face of failures and shortsighted reliance on brute force and against a background of mounting daily fatalities for the innocent in Iraq, Palestine and elsewhere, and with the establishment pointedly withdrawing its support, the Bush administration’s response was typical: arrogant and stubborn.

Referring to a senate panel vote to withhold support from the latest Bush strategy of escalation of the war in Iraq, Vice-President Dick Cheney said: “Nothing will stop us.”

Prof. Adel Safty is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Siberian Academy of Public Administration, Russia. His latest book, Leadership and Democracy, is published in New York