President Bush Flips The Bird

THE PROBLEM that all we pajama-clad commentators share is simple. We don’t have a clue what is going on. Are we winning or losing in Iraq? We just don’t know.

President Bush emphasized that on Tuesday when he flipped the bird at everyone: at the MSM, at his critics, and at Iraq.

He told the mainstream media what he thought about them by embarking them on a bus to Camp David and then telling them that he, Bush, wasn’t going to be there. He flipped the bird to his critics by staying the course. And he flipped the bird to the Iraqis by taking over Baghdad Airport to secure it for Air Force One, and by showing up unannounced at a meeting with Prime Minister al-Maliki. Finally, he addressed a group of our military and demonstrated that he fully enjoys their confidence. It was quite a performance.

But at least when the president acts, you can read a tea-leaf or two. The announcement that, on the request of Mr. al-Maliki, combined Iraqi and Coalition forces would start sweeps of Baghdad to secure the capital, starting immediately, raises an immediate question.

Why wait until now?

The answer is pretty clear. The U.S. must have refused to help secure the capital until the Iraqis stopped squabbling and put a government in place, complete with Defense and Interior Ministers. Sorry, old chum, they must have said. We’re not coming into the capital until you guys get your act together. It must have been a powerful incentive, because the whole world was wailing like a banshee that Baghdad was descending into anarchy. Do something, they cried! Sure, said Bush. After you guys form a government.

Of course, President Bush is right. Elections, shmelections. Real legitimacy is secured by a government that can quell enemies, foreign and domestic. It does no good for the US to do everything. The new Iraqi government must prove it deserves to rule by routing the terrorists: Saddamite, Al-Qaeda, and local militias. Otherwise the mantle of political power in Iraq will fall to someone else.

But the cavalier Bush acts this week also demonstrate that, as of now, the new Iraqi government is a mere US puppet. Hopefully that will change and in a year a confident Iraqi government will tell the US to get out.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

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