The Iraq War retrospective Thread

[Occhidiangela]

Is Bush really going to care about what congress thinks?

Now that he hasn't got majorities in both houses, he's stuck doing so. This is no longer 2003.

He's already adopted the position that, in a time of self-declared war, he can do anything he thinks fit to "defend" the country.

I note that in the past four years, he's run into legal and political challenges to his policy on captives, on domestic surveillance, and has had to use the veto power as a political expedient. It is my read that he has learned, the hard way, about the limits of his office.

As a lame duck, he doesn't care what anyone thinks, especially since he "knows" he's right. The military is ultimately under his command. They can disagree, resign even, but they have to follow orders.

This sort of reductionist scare mongering isn't worthy of the Thecla I've come to know and love over the years. You will note that Bush had to hide behind the uniform of general Patraeus, rather than sending the CENTCOM commander or the Secretary of Defense to Congress last year to testify about how this Surge was and wasn't working. Thank God he had the sense to put Ambassador Crocker up there as well.

Anyway, not to disagree with what you say --- I think the obstacles are too significant to allow for a US strike on Iran before W leaves office; but there may well be people in his administration who would dearly love to bomb Iran's nuclear sites before they leave office.

I don't doubt for a minute that Dick Cheney would like to do that. He and his office have been a constant source of rhetoric in that regard since late 2005/2006, which is about the time the Presidency of Iran changed, and funnily enough about the time the Bush administration finally admitted, after two years of raw denial, that a multi-faceted insurgency was alive and well in Iraq, some parts of which were garnering Iranian covert support. The war of symbols and bellowing, part of war in the modern age, or at least political conflict, is waged in the 24/7 media. Some of it is bluff. Some of it isn't. This is deliberate. One can improves one's position when one's opponent is left uncertain as to one's actual intentions, though Saddam found out that bluff can have nasty consequences.

Saber rattling doesn't always mean a war is coming.

Occhi