Monday
Apr242006
Bush's bad credit rating
Monday, April 24, 2006 at 3:00AM
By Ellen Ratner
What's wrong with this administration's policy regarding Iran? A few right-wingers cheered President Bush's recent saber rattler that "all options were on the table" regarding a response to Iran's nuclear program – the president had just been asked whether the United States would use nuclear weapons against Iran. Is this the same as in Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
I ask this question because this week Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was asked about how much we really know about the Iranian nuclear program. "I'd say we really don't know," Hoekstra candidly declared. "We're getting lots of mixed messages ... We don't have all of the information we would like to have." Does any of this sound familiar, as in Saddam's WMDs, Niger "yellowcake" uranium, and the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons suits our troops were forced to wear during Operation Iraqi Freedom, only to discover that the only biological threat was the diseases ravaging Iraq's children?
Contrary to what the Republican spin machine would like you to believe, this isn't really a liberal-conservative issue. No sane American or European (and many Iranians, for that matter) want to see Iran's mullahcracy possess a nuclear weapon. But our experience in Iraq has proven that no decent American of any political stripe wants to send our national children to wage a war that (to adopt the explanation most charitable to this administration) is based on flawed intelligence. For those readers who supported Bush's 2003 decision to invade Iraq, would you do so again, knowing what you know now? Some might, but many conservatives have privately told me (and many have publicly declared) that they would not.
So the question is: What exactly are you going to do about it? Accept this administration's assurances that the Iranians are a pitched penny away from a nuclear weapon? Or this time, will you be content to wait until the much derided United Nations' Mohamed El Baradei and his IAEA has the opportunity to fully investigate? It galls many conservatives, but it turns out that Hans Blix and former Marine Scott Ritter were right – Saddam didn't have WMDs. But on Bush's say-so, we fired a couple of hundred U.N. inspectors and sent in a couple of hundred thousand U.S. soldiers who confirmed the truth. And while Hans Blix basks in retirement somewhere, we've got at least 132,000 brave American men and women who risk their necks every time they go outside the wire.
One way to imagine the American presidency is to think of a credit card with a credit limit. Any president – left, right or center – has a certain credit limit which probably peaks the moment he takes the Oath of Office. From then on, he (and someday, she) has to carefully guard their credit, using it wisely. Miss too many monthly payments, and forget about it, you're maxed out and denied. Whatever President Bush had after his election in 2000 – and whatever he might have added in the aftermath of 9-11 – is gone, spent, blown, squandered on bad foreign-policy decisions, bad advice, and bad management.
At every turn, he's lost a more than a few points (and lives) – Iraq, Katrina, Dubai Ports World, his conservative base on immigration issue, you name it. He's actually done to himself what liberals like me only dreamed of – the political equivalent of personal bankruptcy, bad results delivered with a remarkable speed from bad policy.
Those of a certain age may remember a once well-known 1960's bumper sticker often stuck on the rears of liberals' automobiles: "What If They Gave a War and Nobody Came?" While I admire the sentiment, I always thought of it as a bit naive. In all of recorded history, I'm unaware of any war that was ever cancelled due to lack of attendance. If history proves one thing, it's that wars happen because people like them, no matter the sanctimonious "war is hell" declarations that are made later. But now I'm actually beginning to wonder whether this president is so politically tapped out, so broke, approaching deadbeat no-credit-score status that nobody will attend the next war he decides to throw.
After what the Bush administration has put this country through (not to mention Iraq) I think it's time to cry "halt" before the next adventure puts in us in Tehran with everyone scratching their heads and wondering why we did it.
What's wrong with this administration's policy regarding Iran? A few right-wingers cheered President Bush's recent saber rattler that "all options were on the table" regarding a response to Iran's nuclear program – the president had just been asked whether the United States would use nuclear weapons against Iran. Is this the same as in Hiroshima or Nagasaki?
I ask this question because this week Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., chair of the House Intelligence Committee, was asked about how much we really know about the Iranian nuclear program. "I'd say we really don't know," Hoekstra candidly declared. "We're getting lots of mixed messages ... We don't have all of the information we would like to have." Does any of this sound familiar, as in Saddam's WMDs, Niger "yellowcake" uranium, and the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons suits our troops were forced to wear during Operation Iraqi Freedom, only to discover that the only biological threat was the diseases ravaging Iraq's children?
Contrary to what the Republican spin machine would like you to believe, this isn't really a liberal-conservative issue. No sane American or European (and many Iranians, for that matter) want to see Iran's mullahcracy possess a nuclear weapon. But our experience in Iraq has proven that no decent American of any political stripe wants to send our national children to wage a war that (to adopt the explanation most charitable to this administration) is based on flawed intelligence. For those readers who supported Bush's 2003 decision to invade Iraq, would you do so again, knowing what you know now? Some might, but many conservatives have privately told me (and many have publicly declared) that they would not.
So the question is: What exactly are you going to do about it? Accept this administration's assurances that the Iranians are a pitched penny away from a nuclear weapon? Or this time, will you be content to wait until the much derided United Nations' Mohamed El Baradei and his IAEA has the opportunity to fully investigate? It galls many conservatives, but it turns out that Hans Blix and former Marine Scott Ritter were right – Saddam didn't have WMDs. But on Bush's say-so, we fired a couple of hundred U.N. inspectors and sent in a couple of hundred thousand U.S. soldiers who confirmed the truth. And while Hans Blix basks in retirement somewhere, we've got at least 132,000 brave American men and women who risk their necks every time they go outside the wire.
One way to imagine the American presidency is to think of a credit card with a credit limit. Any president – left, right or center – has a certain credit limit which probably peaks the moment he takes the Oath of Office. From then on, he (and someday, she) has to carefully guard their credit, using it wisely. Miss too many monthly payments, and forget about it, you're maxed out and denied. Whatever President Bush had after his election in 2000 – and whatever he might have added in the aftermath of 9-11 – is gone, spent, blown, squandered on bad foreign-policy decisions, bad advice, and bad management.
At every turn, he's lost a more than a few points (and lives) – Iraq, Katrina, Dubai Ports World, his conservative base on immigration issue, you name it. He's actually done to himself what liberals like me only dreamed of – the political equivalent of personal bankruptcy, bad results delivered with a remarkable speed from bad policy.
Those of a certain age may remember a once well-known 1960's bumper sticker often stuck on the rears of liberals' automobiles: "What If They Gave a War and Nobody Came?" While I admire the sentiment, I always thought of it as a bit naive. In all of recorded history, I'm unaware of any war that was ever cancelled due to lack of attendance. If history proves one thing, it's that wars happen because people like them, no matter the sanctimonious "war is hell" declarations that are made later. But now I'm actually beginning to wonder whether this president is so politically tapped out, so broke, approaching deadbeat no-credit-score status that nobody will attend the next war he decides to throw.
After what the Bush administration has put this country through (not to mention Iraq) I think it's time to cry "halt" before the next adventure puts in us in Tehran with everyone scratching their heads and wondering why we did it.
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