MALICKI'S TIGHTROPE

Surprised?-- Not in the least!-- The ardent AIPAC Senator Levin from Michigan has demanded that Prime Minister Malicki be removed from office by the Iraqi parliament and replaced by someone more attuned to American interests-- Never mind that the serious state of disrepair to which the crumbling Iraqi cabinet finds itself moored is more than acutely capable of withstanding the puerile onslaught of the senator's inane predilection for substituting asinine lecture for real world tactical expertise-- Who would the posturing Levin supplant Malicki with....... the duplicitous Ahmad Chalabi????-- Who competent enough is willing to risk the moniker of collaborator and the karma to which the perception of such treason accrues will step up to and face down the internecine murder rampant in the House of Baghdad???--

Never mind that Mr. Malicki today finds himself still on the top side of the soil primarily because his shrewd political dexterity maintains a necessary integrity in sufficient quantity to ward off assassination that would certainly occur were he to openly and servilely collaborate with the foreign occupation above and beyond the interests and needs of his own tribe and sect-- Over on the West Bank Mr. Abbas will soon wish he had the same skill and courage-- That Malicki's tightrope maneuvering could certainly cease at the drop of a hat is practically lost on the immature logic of Levin's inopportune and myopic m. o. which seems to imply in a klutzy nutshell that the louder he shouts at the Iraqis the greater the obedience he will exact in kind-- Malicki has demonstrated a dauntless fortitude, missing most assuredly from both the Neocon architects and senatorial critics, to engage with Iraq's Sunni and Shiite neighbors to attempt to rectify the insanely incendiary situation, doing so even in the constant face of an acute danger even Mr. Bush may not wish to terminate by offering this week's kiss-of-death public support-- Most of America's demanding silly-ass senators never venture beyond the Green Zone for their pre-packaged misinformation--

Adding her disingenuous voice to the coattails of Levin's jig in a furtive ploy to appear ahead of the curve (while trailing events in real time) Hillary has joined the feint by impulsively demanding, imagine this, 'a less divisive and more unifying figure', one who can ostensibly and single-handedly, of course, heal or bridge the hideous rifts violently separating these sectarian and tribal enemies-- Hillary's naive reading of the situation conjures up a wicked distortion that marks her not so much frustrated as delusional-- Does a single person wait somewhere in the shadows in or out of the Iraqi government readying himself to jump into the hostile fray with enough power and prestige, at Hillary's behest, to produce a Hollywood ending to a grave and perilous condition the side-effect of which would pave her ascension to the American Throne???-- Not, in the least, very likely-- Let everyone also hope she is not seriously prescribing for today's Iraq a pleadingly Rodney King type of moment followed by a Kumbaya reconciliation-- Wake up, Senators, neither of you are in charge of either the Iraqi government or events on the ground and injecting yourselves negatively into the mix adds nothing but sour fodder to our declining influence in the world-- This insurgency no matter how bastardized we paint it, will not kowtow to your demonstrably ignorant cajolery-- Screechy petulance is not a solution--

What has Malicki actually done that has fired this divisive disunity???-- The American presence demands he seek permission for nearly every act he performs in official capacity and every time he turns around the Neocon strategery has re-concocted a fresh gimmick designed to compel an increasingly fictional victory that will play well in the political-media sphere, absolve them of criminal complicity and intellectual malfeasance, and reward them by miraculously tying up all the loose ends of the greatest foreign policy debacle in American history just in time, you guessed it, for the fall election-- However, aside from the more practical and truly important tasks currently filling his overburdened plate, not to mention the ever present cross-hairs he subjects himself to, were Malicki himself to implore the US Congress to elevate a 'less divisive more unifying figure' to lead the American endeavor, odds are Hillary's candidacy would be hard pressed to survive the first cut--

Glaringly this also reveals these senators' inability to process the explicitly intense opposition even moderate Iraqis hold for the occupation as well as the Shiite majority's desire to hold on to power against the Sunni minority that so recently abused their rule over the now ascendant Shias--The four or five million refugees dislodged from their lives hold the US blameworthy and do not look upon their disheveled predicament as democratic liberation--Lacking this important perception yields an incoherence thwarting any reasonable chance for an efficacious outcome-- All else is tilting at political windmills-- Unwilling to cop to the deplorable facts that the occupation itself, for which compliant Hillary willingly cast an affirmative vote, infects the sectarian divide and further festers Iraq with a never-ending open-wound--

The frightened weak-willed demies may be way more than willing to forgive their own ignominious emasculation at the hands of Bush, Rove & Company because, after all, the lucrative radiant perks availing themselves upon even the minority continue to keep the demies in the bloated excess of splendor but on the difficult ground inside Iraq enflamed blood feuds will continue to exact their diabolical revenge until the spirit fully plays itself out not withstanding the prevalence of the dog and pony chart-briefings emanating from the air-conditioned Green Zone, the prolific positional term-papers dreamed up in think-tanks a thousand miles away from the dusty battlegrounds being contested, the tactical tweaking of amateur-hour strategists fill White House vacuums or the pervasive sound-bite posturing of a senatorial paradigmatic obliviousness-- Our leaders refuse to actually see what is really occurring on the ground in Iraq and most have no idea who the Iraqis really are-- The Hubris of our blindly exceptional-ist ideology prevents us from reacting in our own best interests-- How may these Senators rectify Iraq when their in-cohesive incompetence on the floor of our own Congress meets with mere 14% approval fooling not the other 86% of the American people??--

ACCIDENTAL VICTORY?

Strange week on the current affairs block-- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Malicki who has publicly stated he is never allowed to move his own troops around Baghdad or even set up a checkpoint without first securing American permission, initiated invitations to all the major players in the middle east to join him at an early March round-table where the United States will come face to face with Iran and Syria and guess what....talk to each other-- Reconciliation???-- Too much to hope for given the extent of this incendiary conflagration???-- How deeply the toxicity of sectarian hatred has progressed???__ How many independent groups including intelligence agencies from outside countries are involved and the ease with which their unique agendas can derail even well-intentioned efforts??-- France agreed to attend but their I-told-you-so presence alone might be enough to scuttle the wounded pride of US options-- Bottom line, though....it's only the last place left to start--

Change of heart??-- Suddenly weak in the knees??-- The Decider in a grand stand-down??-- After failure upon failure upon setback upon setback in Iraq as well as Afghanistan did the improbable North Korean deal soften up the administration??-- His Feb. 15 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, the neocon think tank which supplied his rationale for initial Shock and Awe all the way up to the Surge which is more a reinforcement rather than a Surge in the classical sense, indicates that much of this failure has failed to penetrate his particular ideological paradigm-- At any rate, did what seems like an accidental/unintentional victory (or kow-tow?)by the diplomatic corps on the Korean Front and the ensuing praise it engendered world wide convince Bush to attempt another new way forward from the losing end of Iraq??--

A win is a win is a....... but meaningful tide-turning victories have been so few and far between during his Iraq war tenure--Having Malicki back-door the invitations is obviously designed to make it appear that the administration is only another interested party and not the desperado politico groveling for any way out of a disintegrating violent morass of his own making but the whole world knows better-- Bush doesn't really need to save face to ameliorate the world anyway-- What he needs is a Nixonian canard like Peace with Honor which allows the visage in his own mirror to appear less judgementally threatening to George himself-- He's the man he has to live with but that's really neither here nor there in the fluidity of this week's cascading events--

Interesting allegation last week that refuses to go away and hide, claims Karl Rove in receipt of an offer four years ago from Iran proffering to negotiate the whole nine yards... Nuclear options, Israel Palestinian peace ramifications, Hezbollah, Hamas and the compromises open to their government which the short sighted administration immediately dismissed out of hand in what.....a fear their hegemonic dreams might yield to some kind of contamination-- Sec State Condi Rice recently disavowed ever having seen the document ( but didn't disavow ever hearing about it)-- Such unnecessary dissembling which she shows no reticence in practicing with aplomb-- Iran as well as Syria have offered to start talks for years and the State Department, The DoD, The NSA, and the White House are all well aware of it--

Redundant reports all week concerning the inadequate training supplied our troops as they prepare to execute the Surge in another rush, the deterioration of our National Guard , and Joint Chief of Staff Peter Pace's unflinching public statements concerning the degraded condition of our overstretched under-manned under-armored troops in Iraq and the spent capacity to react to other trouble-spots around the globe should the need arise-- Apparently two full Army combat brigades were ordered to skip premier training for the shake and bake variety and just when the repo-men seemed to have turned the corner on portraying the lemming demies as a sniveling mealy-mouth crew who wouldn't support the troops out comes another scathing report illuminating the callous squalid treatment of wounded soldiers....our wounded soldiers... at the cockroach vermin-infested Walter Reed Hospital-- One top general has been axed while the Secretary of the Army tendered his demanded resignation-- Would that the mainstream media gets wind of the sordid treatment our volunteer soldiers receive from the careering Military (In)Justice System--

A disturbing question comes to the fore-- Are we needlessly sending thousands of ill-trained troops into the shrieking insurgent buzz saw while our diplomats cop to a surrender/cease fire/ withdrawal agreement in order to spin a canard that we were not defeated????-- Our Surge brought the enemy to the table and negotitiated a surrender on their part????-- Olmert attempted to similarly spin the Israeli debacle in Lebanon in such light last summer but was clearly and publicly rebuked by his own troops and their officers-- Dozens of Israeli reserve troops ill-trained and poorly fed were sacrificed on the final weekend even with the cease fire agreement already secured and in the pipeline-- Let us not even mention the material decimation including a relatively high number of tanks and personnel carriers or the damage to IDF's once vaunted reputation--

In Iraq General Petraeus reaped disconcerting news from his core team of PhD lauded insurgency specialists (serious academic achievers with critically impressive ground combat experience)-- Gen Petraeus' team reported after a country-wide survey of intel-gathering first-hand that the US lacks the troop count to credibly fight the insurgency-- British troops are cutting out in southern Iraq leaving massive potential for more violence in their wake-- Blair's Royal Empire has tasted its fill while less self-enamored Denmark opts to follow suit-- The coalition under-weighted as it once was appears now to be in full-fledged dis-repair before the real battle for Baghdad even begins --

Britain's troops are not going home to victory parades and Blair affirmed publicly his opposition to a Bush attack or, for that matter, anybody else's attack on Iran--No more monkey to the US organ-grinder, Blair's piecemeal troop pull-out is a vote of no-confidence and diminishes overall strength as it thins defenses in the simmering Shiite territory of oil-rich southern Iraq-- A chink in this armor strains relative insecurity everywhere else leading Petraeus himself to warn of a surge in American casualties in the months ahead-- Destination Walter Reed is not confidence-inspiring, to say the least, and in Petraeus own words, 'The stakes couldn't be higher.'--

Petraeus cannot stop the suicide martyrs, the car bombs or the roadside IED's anymore than Malicki can and his PhD crew warns of problematic morale issues emanating from the Green Zone-- There are less than a few remaining who believe in the efficacy of miracles-- Without ruling out a potential Vietnam-type endgame collapse in the not too distant future, perhaps in the not too distant present, the knell of each new car bomb punctuates the gloom with augury-- Perhaps the hapless Malicki's overture for talks signals DC's grim realization that imminent strategic defeat might be rearing its ugly head..........a leadening depressive possibility--

Referencing once again Seymour Hersh's The Redirection because it brings to light Bush's ace up the sleeve if the talks fail, or in a perverse and irrationally maddening light if they look like they might succeed-- Having asked the Pentagon for a battle plan to attack Iran with a massive aerial bombardment that could be ordered into execution within 24 hours, the word from Hersh's highly placed sources is the Pentagon has complied-- Not Gates, not Pace, not Blair, not Chalabi, not Daddy Baker, not Greenspan, not Woodward, not Giuliani, not Pelosi, not Reed, not Hagel, not Obama, not McCain, not Sheehan, not Cronkite, not Rodham, not McConnell, not Lott, and probably not even Rove at this juncture can stop it-- The Decider still holds trump unless........

PETULANT BENCHMARKS

Every benchmark achieved so far in Iraq whether it be toppling of Saddam Hussein and his statue and then for all the world to see allowing the new Iraqi Government's hooded henchmen to lynch him or whether it be the impositioning of a hurriedly constructed constitution or the purple-fingered elections adamantly demanded by Bush or the killing of the renegade Al Qaeda be-header al-Zarquawi or the destruction of Falluja or the rescue of Jessica Lynch or whatever other positive note momentarily struck for optimum public relations value, they have all failed to stem the sectarian violence, have failed win the hearts of Iraqis, have failed to secure the country, have failed to stop the increase of attacks against our troops, have failed to return Iraq to pre-war levels of electrical and oil production and have failed to stanch the hemorrhaging moral trust and confidence once accorded the US regionwide and worldwide-- Surging into Baghdad though will somehow achieve the success of repeatedly undefined victory even as it continues to slip through Bush's fingers???--

Even those who championed the Surge for postural and political reasons don't believe it can succeed especially after recently learning that the operations will be conducted under two separate sets of command-- A strategic blunder that will jumbo cluster every tactical decision, slow tactical agility to a snail's pace as well as fubar-ing its decrepit aftermath-- The goalposts have been shifted too many times in vain attempts to posit after the fact any success as DC's original goal-- The lackluster results so haunt the Neocons that outright desperation and fear of the pointed finger of accusatory blame initiates new plans daily more devoid of reality than the last-- America's political landscape will continue to be haunted by it for years to come if not decades-- This failure will not because it cannot be swept under the rug-- The consequences are beyond enormous --The rug itself may be repo-ed by the creditors who financed this doomed debacle-- Richard Nixon could deflect attention from the failure in Vietnam by opening a brave new diplomatic front with the dreaded Red Chinese but no such option avails itself to the diplomatic corps in DC today--

The deflection open to Bush, while his senatorial opposition dallies and dithers its political capital away in a dis-spiritedly obscene game of poorly played charades, is ever more war, this time in the form of aerial bombardment of Iran-- Bush is not sending a third carrier group to the region for a show of force-- A more robust redux of Shock and Awe in joint force aerial attacks featuring the freshly down-vaunted Israeli Air Force in the lead-- An understatement to say the least neither country or its leader being burnished by confidence from large sectors of their populations-- Too many reporters now publicizing leaked information from military and intelligence sources depicting ongoing operative war plans being put into place like a massive jig-saw puzzle only the more recent intel suggests the latest plan of attack may be of magnitude higher in caliber and larger in scale than earlier reports projected--

The frustration load the Iraq failure continues to burden the Bush psyche with demands a higher payload of retribution and destruction for these radical Mullahs and their hot-head prime minister who have added insult to injury by so audaciously sticking their middle fingers smack into the face of a politically-weakened strategically-challenged Bush and simply defying him time and again-- No American president has ever been so openly dissed worldwide as this struggling flailing man--Every avenue open to Bush leads to metaphorical and/or moral suicide-- He can't quit and he can't win-- Fate has him by the gonkers-- There are no miracles here--

To capitulate now and ask for dialogue with Iran is to lose face big-time in a much too craven retreat from the stupid tough talk that backed him into fate's corner in the first place-- To bomb Iran's suspect nuclear sites as well as all military sites and major industrial zones to debilitate Iranian regional influence and potential economic power far enough into the future to satisfy Israeli paranoia and save Prime Minister Ehud (14%) Olmert's questionable political future, severely and immediately jeopardizes the oil-addicted heavily over-indebted American economy and tangential business interests of Western Civ worldwide and unquestionably and profoundly endangers the overstretched under-armored under-appreciated American troops now operating in Iraq under Operation Provide More Targets-- Should the numerically superior Shia Militias with their jihad fortified morale join the insurgent violence in a big way by overtly increasing the tempo and caliber of attacks against American troops Bush could conceivably be the only President in our short history to preside over not only such a grave and excruciatingly demoralizing defeat but perhaps the complete destruction of that army-- Dire ain't a strong enough word here-- America, you should be worried!!!!--

Each new (actually recycled) think-tank theorem or strategy exits the starting gates tabula rasa blindly optimistic and promising success where the others have crashed and burned or simply failed to gain any relevant posi-traction-- The insurgency and the ongoing sectarian carnage control the terrain and the time upon which they battle-- The militias are capable of going to ground, disappearing from the arena, blending into the general population for rest, recuperation and re-arming and then emerging again to fight when conditions favor them-- New theorem and strict timelines can't alter this-- So far unable to wrest this tempo away from the insurgents the ensuing frustration wells-up correlative to the mounting casualties and financial costs and the diminishing support on the home-front and abroad--

Every idiot candidate who once supported this doomed misadventure now has an exit plan being bandied about the blathersphere-- Every imbecilic editorial board who cheer-led the opening assault of Shock and Awe and hailed the prospects of a five-day war as if it were a sporting event or a fox-hunt now has an exit plan and a blame-thrower aimed at someone else-- Every prize-winning pro-war bandwagon pundit who has jumped the Bush career-ship now has an exit strategery and has quietly removed the flag pin from his lapel-- Gone the glorius rapture of jingoism that now finds every mahogany-foxholed Neocon with imperceptibly accurate ground level intel still in the final throes of a grandiose ideological prescription for Victory-- Success so far still incapable of being defined in terms even extraordinary people can understand--

All of these plans from the wild-eyed optimistic to the heavily saturnian realistic to the bamboozled, the confused and frightened to those well intentioned and of good but flawed faith have thrown down the gauntlet of still more petulant benchmarks-- The way out of facing their own complicity for this tragic mega-blunder is quite easy.... simply blame the Iraqis!!!-- Their government isn't cutting the mustard-- It can't even buy a quorum with stacks of doubled-down shrink-wrapped dollars-- Give Malicki a binding deadline he can't possibly meet and if he fails to do what our Government has been manifestly incapable of achieving, give him the noose of a coup or threaten him with the loss of his American Cash Daddy-- Volunteers countrywide to succeed him in office number somewhere between the robustly slim and none-- Demand that he attack his own family, his own tribe and then his own militia in a vain act of suicidal sacrifice because the real responsibility for the (fait accompli) outcome of this ugly tragedy engendered by the blind hubris of exceptionalism and cool, won't exactly gleam from the pages of careerist resumes or polish Arlington's gardens of stone--

The narcissistic odor of this ultimatum frenzy alone will obviously guarantee painlessly successful action and rescue our leaders from there own camouflaged pap-- This from those who unabashedly witnessed the pathetic display of ineffectuality in the non-binding resolution flame-out on the Senate floor midweek last-- The heavyweight statesmen inside the Senate chamber sure know how to get things done-- Maybe John Warner who actually voted against his own resolution and Harry 'chicken' Reed should offer to train Malicki (the only one of the three actually facing real live bullets) in the delicate art of real fakery--

Perhaps we should give the US Congress a list of petulant spoiled impractical demands ala Shirley in a Templesque tantrum including an exit date for American troops, fully binding resolutions of real statesmen, stop the campaign fundraising while our country attempts to survive the imminent emergency, and see how focused these lazy slackers toe the line on such an obviously sure-fire road to victory-- Warn them should they fail the deadline of their mission a visit to Malicki's henchmen could be in the offing-- The weight of History is on the table-- Rough Music on the way--