Two weeks before receiving a major assessment of the war in Iraq, President Bush gave a ringing defense of the war effort Tuesday in a speech that sounded like he’d already made up his mind to stay and fight.
Bush hailed security gains, defended middling progress by Iraqi leaders and argued that the future of the entire Middle East would rise or fall on the outcome.
"It’s going to take time for the recent progress we have seen in security to translate into political progress," Bush told a friendly audience at the American Legion’s national convention. "Leaders in Washington need to look for ways to help our Iraqi allies succeed, not excuses for abandoning them."
Bush argued that withdrawing American forces would allow the Middle East to be taken over by extremists and put the security of the United States in jeopardy. By contrast, he said, continuing to fight is "the most important and immediate way" to put the strategic, struggling region on a path to democracy, economic expansion and stability that is inhospitable to terrorists.…The president said there is reason to be hopeful about Iraqi leaders’ efforts, particularly at the local and regional levels. Many benchmarks also are being met in effect without legislation, he said, noting that oil revenues are being shared among provinces without the passage of a law to require it.He praised a weekend pact among leading Iraqi politicians on some other issues that have blocked national reconciliation. However, the Iraqi parliament still must codify the agreements – something that has repeated fallen apart in the past. The deal was not enough to bring the main Sunni Arab political bloc back into the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
After last week’s tense exchanges between Washington and Baghdad about U.S. frustration with al-Maliki’s government, Bush compared the struggles of Iraq today with the sometimes-difficult nature of democracy during U.S. history.
"In the midst of the security challenges, Iraq’s leaders are being asked to resolve political issues as complex and emotional as the struggle for civil rights in our own country," the president said. "So it’s no wonder that progress is halting and people are often frustrated. … Even we can’t pass a budget on time, and we’ve had 200 years of practice."…The president used Iran’s ambitions for increased global power as one argument for why failure in Iraq would cause the region to fall apart and the world to become more dangerous.He accused Iran’s leadership of trying to destabilize Iraq, saying, "I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities." And he said that a precipitous U.S. departure from Iraq would lead Tehran to "conclude that we were weak," accelerate its alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons and touch off an atomic arms race in the already volatile Middle East.
"Iran’s actions threaten the security of nations everywhere," Bush said.
We also know that George W. Bush will never come to believe that we should stop fighting this war of his. We know that his persistence in fighting this war has no relationship to either how it is going, or how it will come out. It’s just what he does, make speech after speech entreating us to continue on because the enemy is evil. Paradoxically, even if he could think up some magic way to bring off something in Iraq that he could pass off as a victory, the dangers he’s preaching would not go away. His whole premise that he can supress the entire Middle East by force, Iraq, Iran, Syria, al Qaeda, is absurd. Even if everything he says is completely true, his idea of what to do about it is ridiculous.
The president used Iran’s ambitions for increased global power as one argument for why failure in Iraq would cause the region to fall apart and the world to become more dangerous. One wonders what that means. How would that work? Failure in Iraq would cause the region to fall apart? It’s apart already. We made sure of that ourselves. It’s already more dangerous.
Bush reminds me of a buffalo leading the charge over the cliff. Of course we all know that he only leads with his mouth not his body. When is someone going to say enough already stop this crazieness. Bush has to go before he blows up anymore countries. . I want the Democratic leaders to pound this Administration with everything they got as if their lives( and ours) depended on it. Bringing home our dead soldiers late at night so that Americans don’t see the flagged draped coffins. Bush doesn’t want Americans to see what this war is doing to our soldiers. How the war hasn’t been paid for yet because the president’s budget doesn’t include the cost of the war. We need to tell people over and over that Saudi Arabia, China and other wonderful countries are giving us loans that will have to be paid someday. I’m becoming numb to all the things that Bush and company have been doing. I’m tired of Bush lying to us every time he opens his mouth. We already know that the war will continue after the Patraeus/WH report because Bush is already telling us how well the surge is going. I hope the campaign to continue the war will fail and we start bringing the troops home. We need courageous people in Congress and in the private sector to stop this nonsense.