Thought Theater

Bush Now Frustrated With Iraq Progress genre: Just Jihad & Polispeak & Six Degrees of Speculation

Catching up with the vast majority of Americans, President Bush has expressed frustration with the progress in Iraq and the lack of support for the U.S. effort from the new Iraqi government and the Iraqi people. Nonetheless, perhaps Bush is finally facing up to the complexity of the situation as well as the futility of characterizing the Iraqi effort as the exportation of democracy and a battle to defeat Islamofascism...goals that likely make it more difficult to quell the strife that plagues the troubled country. Read the full New York Times article here.

Those who attended a Monday lunch at the Pentagon that included the president’s war cabinet and several outside experts said Mr. Bush carefully avoided expressing a clear personal view of the new prime minister of Iraq, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.

But in what participants described as a telling line of questioning, Mr. Bush did ask each of the academic experts for their assessment of the prime minister’s effectiveness.

More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd.

Excuse me, but I find it unfathomable that the President is puzzled by Iraqi support for Hezbollah. If so, he is clearly unable to grasp the larger issues that plague the Middle East and demonstrate his failed policy within the region. During the Hussein years, the Iraqi's were staunch supporters of the Palestinian cause and to assume that support would evaporate after the fall of Hussein is simply absurd.

Thought Theater has long argued that until the Palestinian issue is resolved, there will be no lasting peace within the region...and the U.S. will continue to be the focus of animosity and skepticism as we are seen to be Israeli collaborators in oppressing the Palestinian people. Until that perception changes...and it won't until the U.S. is seen as a force in establishing a Palestinian state...the U.S. will have little credibility with the majority of those who inhabit the region.

One participant in the lunch, Carole A. O’Leary, a professor at American University who is also doing work in Iraq with a State Department grant, said Mr. Bush expressed the view that “the Shia-led government needs to clearly and publicly express the same appreciation for United States efforts and sacrifices as they do in private."

Vali R. Nasr, an expert on Shia Islam, said the Pentagon meeting appeared to be an effort to give White House, Pentagon and State Department officials better insight into Iraq’s religious and ethnic mix.

“They wanted new insight, so they could better understand the arena in which they are making policy," said Mr. Nasr, author of “The Shia Revival." He said he got no sense that the Bush administration was contemplating a shift in its Iraq policy.

But one critic of the administration’s management of the war effort said he remained unconvinced that the White House was actually listening to alternative viewpoints.

The critic, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said in a telephone interview that “one of the hallmarks of this administration has been stubbornness to any change of approach."

Wow! Well over three years into this war and the Bush administration is now willing to listen to experts who may be able to explain the dynamics at play within the country and the region? Nothing could better portray the intransigence of the neocon mindset. Further, it serves to reinforce the accusations that the neocons manipulated the data and the assessments prior to invading Iraq. The views they received in this recent meeting are not new observations...they are long held perspectives about Iraq and the region that have been readily available to any who were willing to listen. We can only hope that the President is finally listening and learning.