Bush clinging desperately to the "war on terror" issue until 2008...

[kentuck]

Every appearance brings out the same tired phrases about "tyranny", "bringing democracy to the Middle East", "America and the world are better off without Saddam Hussein", etc. How many times have we heard those phrases by now? We are making "progress", he says. But, are we really? Bush is clinging to this story and he wants the people to believe it. If he can hold on until 2008, he and his Party will then blame his successor for any failures that might then occur. The sad truth is, Iraq has already been lost.

======================================================

Nir Rosen, an expert on Iraq, had a very different viewpoint in this morning Washington's Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/26/AR2006052601578.html

<snip>
I have spent nearly two of the three years since Baghdad fell in Iraq. On my last trip, a few weeks back, I flew out of the city overcome with fatalism. Over the course of six weeks, I worked with three different drivers; at various times each had to take a day off because a neighbor or relative had been killed. One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets, all called Omar. Omar is a Sunni name. In Baghdad these days, nobody is more insecure than men called Omar. On another day a group of bodies was found with hands folded on their abdomens, right hand over left, the way Sunnis pray. It was a message. These days many Sunnis are obtaining false papers with neutral names. Sunni militias are retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya , or ID cards, of all passengers. Individuals belonging to Shiite tribes are executed.

<snip>
Sectarian and ethnic cleansing has since continued apace, as mixed neighborhoods are "purified." In Amriya, dead bodies are being found on the main street at a rate of three or five or seven a day. People are afraid to approach the bodies, or call for an ambulance or the police, for fear that they, too, will be found dead the following day. In Abu Ghraib, Dora, Amriya and other once-diverse neighborhoods, Shiites are being forced to leave. In Maalif and Shaab, Sunnis are being targeted.

The world wonders if Iraq is on the brink of civil war, while Iraqis fear calling it one, knowing the fate such a description would portend. In truth, the civil war started long before Samarra and long before the first uprisings. It started when U.S. troops arrived in Baghdad. It began when Sunnis discovered what they had lost, and Shiites learned what they had gained. And the worst is yet to come.

....more

[cliss]

1. The key word here is 'desperate'.

Bush is desperate. He knows the jig is up. They already know the majority of people have turned against this war.

But he does not want to give up Iraq. Not the oil, not the strategic bases. But he will....maybe sooner if not later.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Like most bullies, he's terrified to be seen as weak.

Rather than admit to the obvious defeat he's led the country into, he's willing to have thousands more killed to protect his rep as a "strong" leader.

I doubt that I can muster more contempt for the man and his followers and enablers than I already have.

[meow2u3]

3. Like most bullies, he IS weak--mentally weak

That's why he's so terrified to be seen as weak--he's scared shitless of being exposed as the wuss he really is.