ShellGames

Who saw it coming...

Ok, who knew this was coming? Did bush? cheney? Rice?

No, none of them have enough foresight to see past their "inner vision." Certainly the real world is beyond them.

But a lot of US did. We've been talking and blogging and warning about it for some time now. But the Repugs won't listen or even look at what we're pointing at. Now maybe they'll see it - the "liberal" press is talking, too.

"U.S. no longer Mideast 'strong horse'
Battered image has left America little influence in the region

By TYLER MARSHALL and ALISSA J. RUBIN
Los Angeles Times

WASHINGTON — "As the Bush administration seeks to negotiate a diplomatic end to the fighting in the Middle East, it finds it has a strikingly weak hand.

"Despite 5 1/2 years in office, Bush's foreign policy team has been involved in surprisingly few high-stakes negotiations in the region.

"Since U.S. forces captured Baghdad without a serious fight in the spring of 2003, fear of American military might has melted away as troops were unable to control the insurgency or stem Iraq's escalating sectarian violence. The result has reduced America's aura of complete power and, with it, the ability to bend others to its will.

"The result is a serious erosion of political goodwill and moral authority, both important components of influence historically available to the U.S."

So what do we do now? Where are we to turn? The decadence of the bush team has left us few choices. We have become an annoyance. A large annoyance, for sure, but still something "they" would just as soon knock out of their way so "they" can get on with their other business. We are doing nothing constructive by being there.

More press is talking, too.

"Engaged on many fronts in the Middle East, count America's success rate there at zero
The Economist
(Aug 12, 2006)

"'Stuff happens,' said a nonchalant Donald Rumsfeld, as looters trashed Baghdad. 'The birth pangs of a new Middle East,' claimed Condoleezza Pollyanna Rice last week as Hezbollah's rockets slammed into Israel and Israel's aircraft pulverized Lebanon.

"Whatever else is going wrong for America in the Middle East, the Bush administration shows an unmatched ability to put its case in ways that make its friends squirm and its enemies fume with rage.

"Beyond the tin ear, however, is American policy really as malign, muddle-headed and incompetent as its critics say?

"The short answer is that America does not have a single policy for the whole Middle East. Some of the so-called neoconservatives believe that one idea -- spreading liberal democracy to the Arab world and Iran -- should guide all America's actions across the region. But for all their influence, the neocons have never quite got their way.

"Apart from the debacle of Iraq, the one vast strategic error Bush has made has been his sin of omission in Palestine.

"Peace in Palestine would not just make it easier to achieve America's wider aims in the Middle East. It would also be the best favour America ever did the Jewish state."

Well, there it is, at least in the opinion of some analysts - to get back in touch with the "real world" of the Middle East, the US administration has to stop putting their Isreali puppy first in all their dealings. They have to take pains and make efforts toward the Palestinians and other cultures and nations of the area.

Pushing our way of life on them is not going to work. They are different in their cultures and expectations. Almost everyone knew that going in. With one significant exception...

posted by DadEO @ 12:13 AM