© WithComment.com 2007
Elections matter! Tuesday’s “State of the Union” speech by President Bush has been viewed by most as a “good” speech. However, I saw it as a president who has been brought to his knees.
Most of the president’s problems have been self inflicted. His plan for a quick victory was brilliant and correct, however, his plan for winning the peace has been just as bad and slow as any guy off the street could have designed.
President Bush’s speech did point out very clearly the problem in Iraq, on the one hand you have the Sunni minority who had supported Saddam Hussein and were seen as the problem in Iraq. Those Sunni’s that have decided to take up arms have aligned themselves with Al-Qaeda. On the other hand you have the Shiite majority who has the support (openly) of Iran. So what are we to do?
The answer, not an easy or simple one, is to kill the leadership of the Shiite & Sunni militias and organize a strong central government. However, that government is always going to have to have a strong hand in dealing with religious thugs.
Because of the problems in Iraq, President Bush can not deal with N. Korea and Iran in the way that he needs to as he pointed out so correctly in 2002 as the “Axis of evil” We now get reports that N. Korea is directly helping Iran with its testing program. Ahmadinejad has promised an active enrichment process and bomb in their new year, which begins on March 20th, 2007. He has also continued his promise to end the “United States and the Zionist regime of Israel” Words that we must listen too. Although I know Iran is not ready to “destroy” the U.S. it would not take much to devastate Israel.
The Democrats have made it very clear they do not want to do anything that would expand the war in Iraq or move on to Iran. They won’t say they want to cut and run, but instead continue to use words like, “precipitous withdrawal”.
Tuesday night, newly elected Sen. Webb (D-VA) said, “…immediate shift toward strong regionally based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq." Sen. Webb’s words seem reasonable, but he doesn’t give us specific information on how the peace will be won, if our troops are off the streets and out of Iraq. I guess they will just come together, hold hands and sing some song from the 60’s.
President Bush is weakened and now we are in a more dangerous place, in this mad world.
Chris Mendelsohn
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