The Transition Starts Early

Let me print two news story ledes from the past two days, redacting a single name, and then see if you can guess whether they're from, as it were, the ghost of presidential present or the ghost of presidential future:

[T]he [REDACTED] administration has decided to abandon [REDACTED] longstanding position that [REDACTED] will only meet face-to-face with Iran after it first suspends uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council…

All of the [REDACTED] administration’s negotiating partners, particularly the Europeans and the Russians, have been pressing Washington to join the talks. They welcomed the decision to send [REDACTED] as an important signal by the [REDACTED] administration[REDACTED] that it is seeking a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis [REDACTED]…

Wow.  Eight redactions and it's still difficult to conceal which administration is being referred to.  Let's see if I have better luck with the second quote:

The US plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Tehran for the first time in thirty years as part of a remarkable turnaround in policy [REDACTED] President [REDACTED].

The Guardian has learned that an announcement will be made in the next month to establish a US interests section - a halfway house to setting up a full embassy. The move will see US diplomats stationed in the country…

The US has had to rely on British diplomats based in Tehran, as well as other diplomats, for information about the inner workings of Iranian politics. Having its own staff would give them access to students, dissidents and others. The staff would also process visa applications, at present handled by a small office in Dubai, which is difficult for Iranians to get to.

Alrighty, then.  Did these two blurbs come from my crystal ball dialed into the Obama channel, or is it really, truly, actually possible that George W. Bush has degenerated into a bigger wimp than his father ever was?

The answer is: "B," Bush is a wimp.  A wimp that has apparently decided to assist his successor in getting us all killed.  Oh, sorry, "it is seeking a peaceful solution to the nuclear crisis and not moving toward military action against Iran."  Excepting, of course, that there isn't any "peaceful resolution to the nuclear crisis" with Iran.  Either we (or the Israelis) take pre-emptive military action to "disarm" the mullahgarchy now, or they launch a nuclear war against us (and the Israelis) as soon as next month, but certainly no longer than in the next few years.  No wonder the Russians are pleased by this depressing capitulation; it signals the death of the last hope of the West avoiding a catastrophic war at the mullahgarchy's hands, which will play right into those of Czar Putin and his ChiComm benefactors.

I profoundly disagree with AP on one crucial point:

Bush has no choice, really: The “rush to war” narrative on Iraq is so poisonous by now that he can’t afford a replay if the time comes for action on Iran.

Bullbleep.  Bush didn't give a rat's ass what anybody thought after 9/11; he did what needed to be done to defend the country and its interests and let the political fortunes fall where they may.  Which, of course, was why he was so popular back then.  For all the derisive, derogatory Dem use of the epithet "cowboy," that's what Americans wanted from their president - and I think still do today, if anybody on the GOP side would grow a set and offer it to them.

Remember too that he invaded Afghanistan and Iraq before his re-election campaign ever commenced.  He had a second term to lose if things went wrong.  But he did it anyway because it was the right thing to do.  What's he got to lose by doing the right thing now?  In 2005-06, I suppose you could have said his party's control of Congress, but it was his Obamaesque hiding behind futile diplodiddling that allowed the Iranians to wreak havoc and chaos in Iraq, "poison" the public's perception of our efforts to stabilize that country, and destroy the GOP majorities his uncharacteristic and feckless caution was intended, at least in part, to preserve.  His legacy?  How is bequeathing the world several million more dead Jews and God knows how many incinerated European and/or American cities better than at least having tried to take military action to try and prevent it?

It was T.S. Eliot who wrote, "This is the way the world ends - not with a bang, but a whimper".  'Tis the bitterest of ironies that a bang inspired George W. Bush's greatest foreign policy accompishment, and the whimper that is unraveling it that will end up leading to a much bigger bang.

Care to take bets on whether President Hussein will blame it on Bush?