Showing the Puppet His Strings
Over the weekend Our Dear Anointed Leader and Bringer of the Pax Americana to the Hordes of Brown People Whether They Want It or Not, Generalissimo Decider George Bush decided to fly to Baghdad to "look into the eyes" of new Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
A few things leap into view at this point:
1. Bush had to sneak into Baghdad; not even his close aides knew where he was going, and Air Force One had to jink around in the sky for a roller-coaster landing. I guess Bush was worried that the candy and flowers thrown by adoring mobs of Iraqis would hurt his plane. In another blog, a commenter noted that neither Johnson nor Nixon had to sneak into Saigon, so could it be that we don't own the skies over Baghdad?
2. The rest of the Arab world will probably see the meeting for exactly what it is - an infidel overlord meeting his puppet, and the heavy-handed security crackdown in Baghdad (designed to "take the city back," although I thought we already had it) will not win him any friends, particularly if the Sunnis take offense.
3. Bush "looked into" al-Maliki's eyes and considers him a good leader. Well, we all know how good a judge of character Bush is - he looked into Russian President Putin's eyes and considered him trustworthy. Russia is now rearming its military and accusing the US of being a "wolf."
I'm not sure there will be much, if any, positive bounce in Bush's deflated poll numbers. Things are going to start falling on him faster now, as Afghanistan and (possibly) Iraq start to go south and the economy hits a speed bump.
A few things leap into view at this point:
1. Bush had to sneak into Baghdad; not even his close aides knew where he was going, and Air Force One had to jink around in the sky for a roller-coaster landing. I guess Bush was worried that the candy and flowers thrown by adoring mobs of Iraqis would hurt his plane. In another blog, a commenter noted that neither Johnson nor Nixon had to sneak into Saigon, so could it be that we don't own the skies over Baghdad?
2. The rest of the Arab world will probably see the meeting for exactly what it is - an infidel overlord meeting his puppet, and the heavy-handed security crackdown in Baghdad (designed to "take the city back," although I thought we already had it) will not win him any friends, particularly if the Sunnis take offense.
3. Bush "looked into" al-Maliki's eyes and considers him a good leader. Well, we all know how good a judge of character Bush is - he looked into Russian President Putin's eyes and considered him trustworthy. Russia is now rearming its military and accusing the US of being a "wolf."
I'm not sure there will be much, if any, positive bounce in Bush's deflated poll numbers. Things are going to start falling on him faster now, as Afghanistan and (possibly) Iraq start to go south and the economy hits a speed bump.
posted by Walt at 7:30 AM
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