Bush’s Increasingly Tenuous Hold On Reality
One explanation for President Bush’s rant against Iran this week, following on from his extraordinary speech comparing Iraq with Vietnam last week, is that the pressure is finally getting to him. US presidential history, from Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan by way of F D Roosevelt is replete with presidents who on grounds of failing powers shouldn’t really have been allowed to go on. Beseiged by events, cast down by the opinion polls, isolated by the loss of his closest advisers, it would not be surprising if this particular US President was now losing it.
It’s unnerving for the rest of the world, of course, as Bush’s finger is still on the nuclear button, raising the terrifying prospect that his vision of nuclear holocaust in the Middle East could be set off not by Tehran but the US President himself launching an attack on Iran which then involved Israel with all its nuclear weaponry. It’s unlikely, I know, but it’s not something that can absolutely be ruled out given the way that the White House is now ramping up the confrontation with Iran.
The more likely explanation for Bush’s increasingly apocalyptic tone, however, is in some ways more worrying. It is that all eyes in Washington are now exclusively directed to the domestic audience with the added sting that the White House is under the control of a president who does not need to seek re-election and has the will to go down like a western hero, all guns blazing.
Raising the spectre of Vietnam to an audience of veterans - as Bush did last week - clothes him in a patriotic flag, alongside those on the right who have always believed that Vietnam was a self-inflicted defeat not a disastrous war from the start (try telling that to the Vietnamese, Laotians or Cambodians).
When you bring in Iran you enter even more fertile territory for a President trying to paint himself as a lone Ranger and paint his opponents into a corner. There may be few in the US, and even fewer now in Congress, who want America to launch a new Middle East invasion after the disaster of the last, but most Americans believe that Iran is a threat to world peace, intent on developing nuclear weapons and ripe for regime change. Playing the Iran card wrong-foots your opponents (look at the problems Barak Obama got into when he urged direct talks with Tehran) and (theoretically at least) garners domestic support in reaction to foreign threat.
Domestic advantage doesn’t make good policy, however, particularly when it comes to quite so volatile a situation as the Middle East. The trouble with demonising Iran is that you play right into the hands of the most xenophobic and extremist elements in the region. The more America makes Iran the special object of its fear and loathing, the more opinion in the Muslim street, Arab as well as Iranian, makes a hero of it. No wonder President Ahmadinejad - a sort of Hugo Chavez of the Middle East - laps it all up, countering every accusation from Bush with deliberately provocative speeches proclaiming US failures in Iraq and Iranian successes in developing nuclear technology.
Given the state of the country’s finances and Ahmadinejad’s desperate firings and contortions in the economic sphere, the Persian populist would be in deep trouble at home if it were not for the outside pressure. Like Bush, he needs a foreign threat to keep his head above domestic water. Nor, for all his posturing on the holocaust and Israel, is Ahmadinejad in charge of nuclear or foreign policy, where authority has been deliberately concentrated on much more experienced heads who have consistently sought accomodation with the West on the understanding that Washington in return accepts what Tehran regards as its legitimate interests as a power in the region.
Keep calling Iran names and keep threatening it openly with military attack and all you will do is to strengthen the hands of those who feel Iran must develop nuclear weapons, should stoke up trouble in Iraq and Palestine and clamp down on internal dissent in response. Anyone who wants change inside Iran, especially those within, have had their cause painfully set back by a US President who keeps saying he supports them.
Which leaves Britain stuck right in the middle, twisting and turning much as the Democrats in Washington are. London wants out of Iraq but doesn’t want responsibility for the carnage that might ensue. Brown and his colleagues would dearly wish a Democrat in the White House but still have to cope with this Republican with nearly a year and a half to go. Worse, as they read Bush’s latest outpourings, is the knowledge that this is a President who is becoming more divorced from reality and more confrontational with each week.
© 2007 The Independent
All eyes in Washington are ALWAYS aimed at the ‘domestic audience.’
Both London and the Democrats can act any time they choose to. By choosing not to act, you know where each stands. Don’t believe any BS either puts out that tries to convince you that what they believe is somehow different from what they are doing.
” … most Americans believe that Iran is a threat to world peace, intent on developing nuclear weapons and ripe for regime change. ”
I disagree. I think most Americans don’t give that much thought at all. And I believe that most thinking Americans, as opposed to the knee-jerk “patriots”, do not believe this at all. How many countries has Iran attacked in the last couple hundred years? Even if they are trying to build “the bomb” why do so many simply discount the idea that possibly Iran would like to have a more effective deterrent to the 200 to 600 nuclear weapons already in the arsenal of Israel?
“No wonder President Ahmadinejad - a sort of Hugo Chavez of the Middle East - ”
In what way is Ahmadinejad a “Hugo Chavez”? Has he implemented democracy in a former dictatorship? Has he won two elections with overwhelming victories? Has he survived a military coup by the CIA due to an overwhelming popular uprising in his support? Has he spread the country’s oil wealth among the poor? Please tell us.
“…would not be surprising if this particular US president was now losing it.”
Truly frightening in that he had so little to lose in the first place.
Kent Shaw,
Agreed, the “Hugo Chavez of the Middle East” comment seems silly. Apparently anyone who speaks out publicly against Bush and his policies is now Hugo Chavezesque?
However, the idea that Bush could “lose it” is scary, since it doesn’t sound all that unlikely. With his closest pals and advisers either already gone or heading out the door, who will be doing his thinking for him? (I presume he’ll not be doing it himself!)
Does he turn to his father’s circle of “realists”, or does he let Cheney, head of the “f’n crazies” talk him into some crazy bomb Iran scenario.
I’m hoping for the former.
2cents, you can hope for the former, but he’s never done it yet. And I think with Bush’s Brain off to greener pastures, what’s left is addled by alcohol and incapable of critical thinking. Woe is us.
Where reasoning fails, agenda provides blind determination. Is Bush in his bunker? His delusions seem glaring but perhaps his madness lies more in his agenda.
An administration which fit intel to policy… had agenda driving that policy. Bush may be losing it but that would show mainly on his reliance on the neocon (cheney) agenda’s reasoning.
Their plan seems to have ALWAYS been Iran and the cheney/neocons are reluctant to admit the demise of that agenda. So close to completion but yet so far from successful. T
They may be seeking some way to force it to happen in what would be a huge and criminal gamble for us all. Just ask Putin.
What?? “…most Americans believe Iran is a threat”??? Our European friends who say such things are grossly misinformed.
Know, first, that our mainstream media, including CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times, no longer speak for the majority of citizens of this country. Neither does our Congress, or officials from the Pentagon and the State Department. So if all this prattle is your source of knowing what I think and how I feel, you’re dead wrong.
Ah, you say, but we elected these officials not just once, but twice! Are you certain about that? Because most of us on this side of the pond are not. Gore won the popular majority in 2000 because thinking Americans, not the money changers and not the spin doctors, knew Bush was a poor choice. And of course there was Florida; and, in 2004, Ohio.
Ah, you say, but the first post-9/11 poll showed Bush as having a 90% approval rating. I have a hard time understanding that one, myself, if true. If Bush’s public appearance audiences are culled, can’t polls be also? Maybe that was just a vote of national support from a shocked nation. Myself, I will never forget the look on his face when told the news in front of that classroom. He looked afraid; and, unscripted, he appeared to not know what to do. So he just sat there until his handlers came to get him. I thought…”dear God, we’re in deep trouble now.”
So, please, do not assume “most Americans” can’t think for themselves. We’ve been deploring the spin since 1999, despite the incredible results. Your comment only reinforces a falsehood and compounds the problem.
Maybe this last year and a half could more aptly called Bush unfilterd as in raw sewage unfiltered. Watching him comment on ‘berto’s resognation was a true theater of the absurd moment.
I wonder if Laura can talk any sense into him–nah ’cause if she coud it surely would have happened a;ready.
but most Americans believe that Iran is a threat to world peace, intent on developing nuclear weapons and ripe for regime change.….
With all due respect to the writer, I believe that most is a gross exaggeration. Most Americans believe that the Cheney/Bush regime is a greater threat to world peace than the Iranian regime is.
But, you are correct, that we are worried about Bush’s grip on reality. Bush is a moral and mental midget who has dug in his heels — it’s frightening to think of what he and his boyfriends have in their bag of tricks. Bush is sending all of us a signal that you piss off George W. Bush at your peril!
… and when the house is silent, with all but he asleep, he cries as he recalls the promise made - accolades for him from around the world; his greatness captured in the statue that generations would admire as they bipassed Lincoln to catch a glimpse of him. But then the thought creeps into his mind of all the messes made, and he visualizes what’s been made of Presidenet Carter, and how much worse will be his fate, as he stares across the room at the golden liquid in the bottle sitting there. He thinks of all the history books and of his tarnished image there. “They promised me!” he cries out. “They said it would be a piece of cake! I only had to do as I was told, and all would come out right.” Then he rises from his chair, and with an angry growl, he grabs the amber bottle, and wrenches off the cap. “I’ll show them all,” he mumbles and raises it to his lips.
The president of Iran is an outspoken admirer of Chavez–which shows that he is one of the few world leaders with both brains and balls.
But that doesn’t MAKE him a Middle East version.
Chavez is more popular in the Middle East than any other leader. Even when “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” was premiered in the Teresa Carreño Theater in Caracas as part of the first solidarity event in April of 2003 it did not received the megawatt response that it did when I showed it to graduate students in Jordan 2 years later.
“Know, first, that our mainstream media, including CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times, no longer speak for the majority of citizens of this country. Neither does our Congress, or officials from the Pentagon and the State Department. So if all this prattle is your source of knowing what I think and how I feel, you’re dead wrong.”
The ancient aristocratic habit of calling RULERS by the name of the region they RULE has got to end. The government IS NOT the country, and ‘democratic’ regimes are as inaccesible to the demos as the old nobility ever were.
It has been apparent for quite sometime that George W. Bush is mentally impaired. One need only listen briefly to his incoherent babbling, his startling non-sequiters and twists of logic to know that this is so. And this impairment is beyond his probable narcissistic personality disorder. Whether the cause is relapsed alcoholism, sedating drugs or stress, the man is mentally unfit to serve as dogcatcher, let alone President.
Bush has been nuts for years. His intellect is at best impaired, and probably flatlined. Emotionally he’s a twelve-year-old. If he were poor, he’d be the weird guy living down the street in the crumbling, paint peeling house, or living in a box under the bridge. Unfortunately he’s got money and protection, so hundreds of thousands of people have to die and millions have their lives torn apart. And apparently millions more are in the Bush pipeline to destruction.
Is there any mechanism of any kind in place to stop Cheneybush from launching nukes, say, tonight? Or is it really like “The Dead Zone,” where only a lone gunman who can see into the future can save the world?
A savvy President who thought himself part Godfather would present the nicest, most diplomatic face possible - the mafia builds hospitals and feeds the poor at Christmas - thereby not provoking the anger and hatred, while using our hard power stealthily and as necessary. And, of course, denying any use of hard power whatsoever even as the ships park offshore of the next illegal invasion target…
I love the way the so-call liberal press has to always state that Chavez and Ahmadinejad are crazy nuts even when they are talking mainly about the War Criminal in Chief in their article.
Both were elected by their people but of course only our great press has the right to decide if their (the people) decision was correct.
If we are lucky the constant drop in circulation of most newspaper will continue to increase so that they can close them down. The question is at this point what the heck is there to read from these pseudo know it alls.
camus13, TimeWarner has succeeded in getting the postal service to charge exorbitant rates to alternative magazines, putting them at risk of extinction, and with the nation’s major newspapers owned by 5 corporations and the threat of ending net neutrality, we will see a complete shutdown of the free flow of information. Just one of the aspects of a fascist state.
My home town newspaper is independently owned, but chooses to print the corporate spin.
I agree with ricg. Bush has been nuts for years, at least in the sense that sociopathy is nuts. If we had an opposition party in this country, things might be different.
The free flow of information will not end when the last independent newspaper goes out of
business, it will end when the internet is shut down.
Mr. Hamilton —
1. “US presidential history, from Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan by way of F D Roosevelt is replete with presidents who on grounds of failing powers shouldn’t really have been allowed to go on.” Wilson and Reagan I understand — in what way was “F D Roosevelt” so beset by “failing powers” that he “shouldn’t really have been allowed to go on”?
2. “Brown and his colleagues would dearly wish a Democrat in the White House but still have to cope with this Republican with nearly a year and a half to go.” Exactly which Democrat do “Brown and his colleagues” imagine would, if “in the White House”, be doing anything materially different from Bush in the Middle East?
Good questions, Hector, I was wondering that myself about FDR. I missed the second question. Good observation. Any answers?
frank1569, i’ve been describing our predicament ala “dead zone” since the millineum (bush’s ascendency was the impending endtimes debacle everyone was expecting). i sometimes, no strike that, continuously wait for the bombs to fall. i think it’s too late and with all these resignations, bush can’t help feel that he’s all alone. i even think his family is afraid of him and we’re all out on a limb. certain folks will go to their graves and face their makers for blindly selling their souls to a false prophet.
kathyodat__ Can`t help but agree with your prescient comments about our news and information being controlled more all the time until we the people have left only what we are given by our masters. We are further along that scenario than most of us realize, I am afraid. It is disheartening that our representative form of government seems to be getting weaker every day. However, no one can forecast the future accurately
and there have been many totally unforeseen events in our nations history, so we cannot give up, even though the future, with a pair of madmen in control, looks bleak.
Karl used to hold onto my reality for me real tight. Now that he left, my reality has
gone limp, and all I can do is tug on it vigorously while looking at pitchers of dead Iraqis.
Poet - you ask “I wonder if Laura can talk any sense into him – nah ’cause if she could it surely would have happened already.)
Sorry Poet - the evidence says no. As a librarian you just KNOW Laura has been trying to teach him to say “nuclear” correctly for years, and it’s no go. He just can’t learn. (I used to work as a counselor with the mentally retarded and - but that’s for another discussion.)
“Bush’s Increasingly Tenuous Hold On Reality”, implies that he has had some hold of reality; he hasn’t!
Continuous focus on Bush’s hopelessness is a complete diversion from the real enemy of the world’s peoples and nature: the capitalist system.
Bill Clinton also pushed for the inhuman sanctions against Iraq to be maintained. Clinton also bombed Iraq for unjustifiable reasons. Why do people believe that US behaviour would change on key international issues because of electing a Democratic President? Democrat Harry Truman dropped the atom bomb on non combatants. Kennedy and Johnston didn’t help the Vietnamese at all but escalated the war.
Big money makes sure that it gets who and what it wants. With the MSM as its tool, Big money gets politicians elected who are considered “Safe” on Capitalism, Israel and other foreign policy such as Iraq and Iran. Expected more of the same for a while yet.
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Some grounds for optimism:
1)It is very likely that some generals would openly refuse to participate in a military against Iran, pointing out that it would be a flagrant violation of international law and a war crime. If only a couple did so, that would make it hard for others to participate.
2)No one takes what Junior says at face value anymore. Even the average uninformed American now realizes that reality is the exact opposite of what Junior claims it is.
3) Although Junior couldn’t care less about the public, other Republicans–who hope to get elected in 2008–sure as hell do. Most of them realize oil futures would spike if the US attacked Iran, and the bottom would drop out of the stock market. This would spell the death Republican Party. Knowing this, it might be that Republicans want impeachment more than Democrats.
WmC, I consider those weak grounds for optimism.
1) We’ve already seen generals disagree with bush. Fate: fired or retired and replaced with compliant generals. He keeps finding those. Petraeus was a big disappointment.
2) Uninformed Americans get their news from FOX which aligns itself with Bush’s reality.
3) So far, the Republicans - and some Republicans disguised as Democrats are giving Bush whatever he wants. Does that look like impeachment in the air?
I don’t know what it will take to get Americans off their soft rear ends. Certainly not killing a lot of innocent civilians. They can live with that. Well, I do know. Rampant inflation, tanking economy. A big hit on their wallets. Worked for Vietnam. And we’re headed that way.
Probable scenario: rest of world gets tired of our rampaging, throws an economic lasso of debt, and hogties us.
We might end up at the butchershop.
I can’t agree with the premise that President Bush is only now losing his hold on reality. I would like to see any evidence that said President has had a hold on reality at any time in the past seven years.
The man is an unadulterated fruitcake and any ordinary person behaving as he does in normal society, without the privileges of executive office, would have been locked up long ago.