The "Surge" Speech

I have a couple of comments which I have not heard among the thousands of public comments on the G.W. Bush Iraq “surge” speech.

The primary purpose of the speech, it seemed to me, was to shift blame to the Iraqis for the forthcoming retreat of the Americans. The idea is that the Iraqi “government” (placed in quotation marks both for being a U.S. puppet government and for its inability to function as a government) is being given a generous last chance by the U.S. president to bring order to Iraq, after which the Iraqis will be blamed for all future failures. The game plan is that (1) Bush will make a show of inserting more American bodies into Iraq, (2) the Iraqi government will be unable to supply the support which Bush demands of it, (3) the disaster which has resulted from the Bush invasion will continue to be a disaster and probably get worse, and (4) Bush will throw up his hands and say: “I give up. We’re leaving. We’ve gone overboard to help you and YOU have failed.”

The Bush adventure in Iraq is akin to a burglar breaking into a family’s home, smashing dishes and furniture while holding the family in the building, and then saying, “Look at this mess! I’m giving you a broom to clean it up with, and if you don’t have it done by morning, you’re on your own!”

President Bush, as has often been said to you, “You break it, you own it.”

MISSING FROM THE “SURGE” SPEECH AND COVERAGE OF IT

Once more I was astonished that it was possible for Bush to talk about the Middle East for 20 minutes or so, including his threats against Iran and Syria, and for 500 journalists to babble about it for hours, without anyone mentioning Israel a single time as far as I heard. The talking heads managed the incredible feat of ignoring the elephant in the middle of the room. . . the elephant which was responsible for, and was the reason for, the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the first place.

One would have thought it was impossible for the TV talkers to exclaim and shake heads over Bush’s mention of Iran without once mentioning Israel, the one entity which wants Iran rendered powerless – just as Israel wanted Iraq rendered powerless and got the U.S. to do the job.

It is Israel and Israel alone which put it into Bush’s brain to consider Iran an enemy of the United States. The Bush ideas that Iran is “interfering” in Iraq, and that the Iranian nuclear power program is a danger to the U.S., are as related to real U.S. national interests as petunias in Peking. So indifferent, in fact, is Iran to the United States that Bush is finding it necessary to unlawfully kidnap of Iranian diplomats in order to stir up trouble.

I’m happy that I recently published the Israeli-leaked news of a planned attack on Iran on January 7. While Israel postures and floats anti-Iran propaganda, its real aim is that we – the Americans, not the Israelis – cause and suffer the damage in Iran, as in Iraq.

Of course the Israel Lobby, the neocons, the Zionists, and Israel managed to pull a disappearing act (“What? Us?”) once the damage was done in Iraq. Bush can only wish that his planned disappearing act from Iraq, while blaming the Iraqis, will be half as effective.