The Liberal Patriot

Two Sided Rhetoric and the Obvious Solution

J.G. Schwam - January 15, 2007

Dick Cheney and Steven Hadley are talking out one side of their mouths and George W. Bush is talking out of the other. Whose rhetoric is the policy? Some elementary questions remain unanswered. If Iran and are Syria funding or sending Jihadists into Iraq then how is war going to end if our forces don’t concentrate on securing the borders?

"We do not want them doing what they can to destabilize the situation inside Iraq," Cheney said.

Bush's revised war strategy seeks to isolate Iran and Syria, which the U.S. has accused of fueling attacks in Iraq. The president also says Iran and Syria have not done enough to block terrorists from entering Iraq over their borders.-CNN

The concentration of troops into Baghdad makes little sense if the flow of new fighters in from the borders is not stemmed. Is it not basic logic to cut off the enemies supply lines and flow of fresh fighters? Isolating the enemy politically is hollow ineffectual rhetoric. What is the matter with Bush? If he wanted to end the war why wouldn’t it make sense to close Iraq’s borders, drying up the supply of men and materiel fighting our troops in Baghdad? It is naïve to expect countries such as Iran and Syria that are not US allies to cooperate Bush's political goals? Obviously Conde has not been effective or simply not engaged enough to have a chance to be effective. Or maybe Syria simply sees its interests as better served as surreptitiously fighting us in Iraq and couldn’t care less what Conde or the US would like them to do? This is more likely the case, in spite of Conde's ineffectiveness.

One does not have to be the Secretary of State to know that Syria is not our ally. By way of the US Israel policy the US has essentially been at political odds with Syria since 1964. Why then would Bush even think they would they honor our hollow requests to “assist” us in our efforts to secure Iraq, given that that a recent poll that suggests that no more 16% of Syrians support the US presence in Iraq?

The sectarian divide in the Mid-East between Sunni and Shiite Islam has steadily brewed and festered since Iran’s toppling of the Shah nearly 30 years ago, further escalated by the Iran-Iraq war that followed. Bush’s weak Iraq war strategy has given them a battle ground to fight it out. And now they will, with a US presence or without it.

It is not clear if George W. Bush plans to buy time with American lives in Iraq and drag the conflict out until he can goad Iran into war. To some placing a 3^rd aircraft carrier group into the Persian Gulf off Iran’s coast sings toward that tune, while Stephen Hadley and Dick Cheney still talk about winning the war in Baghdad. Hadley’s monochromatic rhetoric echoes the obvious, if Iran and Iraq are providing material support then why simply crow about it, again and again. Close the borders and starve the insurgent’s war machine. You don’t have to have a golden resume to see the obvious. In the mean time Cheney and Hadley talk out of one strategic side of their mouths and Bush talks out of the other. While more Americans die, Bush trots out another rhetorically nonsensical plan supported by virtually no one. Not even Syria and Iran, much less anyone in the west.

Without any sensible strategy or any regional political support how is the US going extricate itself form this war, save putting a positive spin on cutting and running? Karl Rove could handle that task better than Bush or Conde handled the war and diplomatic effort that should have been.

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