perfidy

All two of our regular readers (now dwindled to .0035 readers thanks to an extended four-way hiatus) will remember that back in the heady days of early 2003 when George Boosh was banging the war drum fast and hard (and with such a big stick!), I repeatedly voiced my opinion that I wasn't sure Iraq had anything to do with anything. At the time, the Weapons of Mass Destruction issue (which-- let's not rewrite history-- was repeated an awful lot of times by Those In Charge) didn't carry a lot of water with me, though on strict technical grounds I was willing to grant Bush and Condi and Donald the whole "repeated violations of UN resolutions" thing as casus belli.

But frankly, no matter how many resolutions were broken, at the time I just didn't see the point in libervading Iraq. Not that I thought it was a bad idea or morally "wrong"-- I simply didn't trust Bush and his crew that Iraq was a vital part of the War on Terror thingy, and I trusted them even less not to fuck it up. Iraq seemed more a sideshow, a distraction from the important things, old business between a tinpot dictator and the son of a man he one tried to have killed.

Now, two years later, I have a little crow to eat. Iraq continues to be a near-total mess (and please don't come back at me with the "most of the country is stable" line... I know that is technically true, if by "stable" you mean "the same mess it usedta be." But the light switches still don't work, and cars continue to explode.), but elections have been held that failed to fall apart as a total sham. That's great. Better yet, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, and even Egypt seem to be at the start of something good. Iraq may not have had any WMDs, and Saddam sure didn't have anything to do with the attacks on the US, but in a grand strategic sense, I am now willing to accept that Iraq makes long-range strategic sense in the so-called war on terror.

For now I'm only going to snack, have a crow amuse-bouche, as it were. Everyone's got a long row to hoe to get anywhere worthwhile yet, but so far the beginnings look good. If you told me two years ago that Iraq would have held uneventful elections and Palestine looked willing to come to the table, I doub't I'd believed you. But that's what has happened.

So, from the bottom of my heart: Mr. President, I'm sorry I doubted you and your grand plan. It actually looks like it could work. Now: you better not fuck this up. And hey, lay off the demagoguery at home. You get cocky, you get a boot in your ass.

[wik] ... and now some clarification is in order. I have this problem sometimes where, in order to make sure I say precisely what I mean to say and no more and no less, I weigh my thoughts down with about fifty pounds of hedgings, yes-buts, and preemptive objections. Unfortunately, the effect of this is generally to obscure the elegance of whatever it was I was saying in the first place.

With that in mind, here's the shorter version of the above post: I still don't like our President much, and his foreign policy vis a vis the Middle East sure scared the hell out of me (still does!). But, now that it looks like his actions are in fact partially responsible for the still-embryonic new fashion in democracy and not blowing shit up in the Middle East, I welcome the opportunity to be proven wrong. Let freedom reign! (whatever the eff that means, you half-articulate sham-Texan Connecticut cracker.)

[alsø wik] Via email, Buckethead graciously points out that "one of [my] beloved [sic] cobloggers also predicted this outcome," namely him. Well, yeah. B drank the Bush Admin kool-aid like it was Guyana 1978.

[alsø alsø wik] It occurs to me that comparing Buckethead's early-and-often advocacy of our President's policies to the behavior of Jim Jones' followers is a bit crass. Well, this is more crass: "Well, yeah. B clamped onto the Bush party line like it was a whiskey tit fulla Booker Noe."

[wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] Or this: "Well, yeah. Hey, B: try not to get that stuff in your eye when you're done. I hear it burns."