Glick unveils the darkness of the NIE

Bush, the man who loves to betray people who put their trust in him, has pulled off his greatest feat. Caroline Glick writes:

Many commentators applauded the Annapolis conference claiming that its real aim was to cement a US-led coalition including Israel and the Arabs against Iran. These voices argued that it made sense for Israel to agree to negotiate on bad terms in exchange for such a coalition. But the NIE shows that the US double-crossed Israel. By placing the bait of a hypothetical coalition against Iran, the US extracted massive Israeli concessions to the Palestinians and then turned around and abandoned Israel on Iran as well. What this means is that not only has the US cut Israel off as an ally, it is actively working against the Jewish state.

That is the concluding and most devastating point in Glick’s article, but the whole piece is must reading, making sense out of this bizarre and deeply disturbing event. Glick writes:

There are two possible explanations for why President George W. Bush permitted this strange report to be published. Either he doesn’t wish to attack Iran, or he was compelled by the intelligence bureaucracy to accept that he can’t attack Iran.

The second possibility seems most unlikely. If, as the Wall Street Journal reported, the Estimate was written by three State Department officials who are long-time committed foes of the president’s policies; and if, as Glick points out, the report blatantly contradicts its own sensational announcement that Iran does not pose a nuclear threat, and therefore is false on its face, then what force in the world could have “compelled” the president to publish and endorse a dishonest document that destroys his entire policy? No. Only Glick’s first possibility makes sense: that Bush has lost the desire and intention to attack Iran, and the NIE gave him a way out. Which means that all the excuses made by the Bush lovers to the effect that their man was undermined by liberals within the government, are not believable. Bush himself is the source of the treason.

And what is Norman Podhoretz, the Pope of the Church of Bush, going to say about that?

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James W. writes:

When I saw Bush at his press conference the day after the mid-terms, I forced myself to withhold judgement, because he did for all the world appear to be a lost boy badly in need of his mother. You may recall as well that he reponded to a question by saying that yes, it might be more productive working with a Democratic Congress after all the difficulties that had been coming from his base. I think it’s called any port in a storm, or Hostage Syndrome. And his major fixer, Rove, had just thrown snake-eyes for the first time.

So now Bush is limited to fixating on his original war strategy, whether it is respected or hated, and for anything else he blows with whatever feels good. He, like most, needs to be liked, and to find that source he has reached out in his delusional state to Mexicans and Palestinians.

Tocqueville: “It is not always the ability to choose men of merit which democracy lacks but the desire and inclination to do so. In the United States … the rulers are often incompetent and sometimes despicable.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 08, 2007 12:23 AM | Send