And, also, of course, the fact that I distrust this crew more each month. I thought their response to 9-11 in the first few months was surprisingly almost perfect. Now it's not focused, contradictory, lost is too strong a word.
If my guess is right -- and it's just a guess, we won't know until the historians sort it out thirty years from now -- the Administration wasted six months after 9/11 trying to play by the old rules, work with Our Friends the Saudis, bring a cease-fire to Israel, etc.
Then the concensus shifted. Bush said to himself, not only is this not working, but I am being played for a chump. You think I can't tell that they feed the fire behind my back while begging me to put it out? Nothing will improve, least of all Arafat, Hizbullah and Al Qaeda, until I cut the Gordian knot of the radical Arab regimes and their fantasies of victory. Iraq's a logical target and we have unfinished business there. So Rumsfeld's "forward-leaning" policy came into ascendance.
Now we hear some sounds of Saddam Hussein and the mullahs of Iran trying to placate us. But I doubt it will work. If you ask me to place my bet, the war in Iraq is already starting to heat up. I think Bush will just wait the major announcements until the election's over. That's what Dad did. |
