The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Staying the Course

Having listened with "great interest", as rejection letters sometimes put it, to the Vicar of Downing Street's advice on achieving peace in the Middle East, George W "Bring 'em On" Bush has decided that what Iraq needs is a bit more of the medicine which has been working so well for the past three and a half years: namely foreign fighters.

Bush's new plan is expected to have "a decisive impact" on the policy review which family retainer James Baker has undertaken to try and find some means of re-branding the White House's ignominy as merely sordid (or "realistic") rather than catastrophic. The fresh meat, possibly as many as twenty thousand troops, will be used to cleanse Baghdad of the cancer of insurgency, whereupon the fleeing sectarians will be mopped up outside the city by those troops whose convenient redeployment the newcomers will have facilitated. More importantly, "by raising troop levels, Mr Bush will draw a line in the sand and defy Democratic pressure for a swift drawdown".

Bush's new plan "stresses the importance of regional cooperation to the successful rehabilitation of Iraq". Having kicked Iraq half to death, wrecked half the neighbourhood and alienated the rest, Bush now expects the neighbours to pick up the pieces, always provided that the neighbours are the right sort of people. "This could involve the convening of an international conference of neighbouring countries or more direct diplomatic, financial and economic involvement of US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait." Perhaps Israel might be persuaded to drop a shekel or two in the hat, as well. America is, according to a State Department official, "prepared in principle to discuss with Iran its activities in Iraq"; not their activities, Iran's and America's, just the activities of some unspecified it. I wonder which of them that could be.

Bush's new plan "focuses on reviving the national reconciliation process between Shia, Sunni and other ethnic and religious parties", which the introduction of bloody anarchy by the Coalition of the Enlightened has apparently put back somewhat. According to some sources, "creating a credible political framework will be portrayed as crucial in persuading Iraqis and neighbouring countries alike that Iraq can become a fully functional state"; which will make a pleasant change from the present policy of pretending that Iraq is a fully functional state despite the lack of credible frameworks for virtually anything. Also, "to the certain dismay of US neo-cons, initial post-invasion ideas about imposing fully-fledged western democratic standards will be set aside". Apparently it was those poor dumb neocons who thought we could impose democracy at gunpoint, just as was done by the French aristocracy in 1789 or, for that matter, by the British in America in 1776. His reverence would never have been so naïve. But then again, what the hell: at least we deposed Saddam Hussein, and no amount of native unworthiness can take that away from us.

Bush's new plan will include a call for Congress to allocate funds to support the extra deployments, and to "fund the training and equipment of expanded Iraqi army and police forces", which will certainly endear the army and police forces to any natives who may have noticed what the occupation has achieved so far. Bush's new plan will also "stress the need to counter corruption, improve local government and curtail the power of religious courts"; which, in light of New Labour policy at home, may well be something else that Tony did not suggest.

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