Latter-day Ford Admin failures

ARTICLE: Failing By Example, By Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, May 16, 2007, Pg. 19

A bit of a stretch by Friedman on DoJ, but more to the point on the CPA.

Bottom line analysis is very pertinent: Bush divides rather than unites. That with-us-or-against-us stuff can hold up for only so long (apparently only one term) and then the retreats begin.

Cheney and Rummy learned 2 things during their time with Ford: 1) don't do Vietnams and 2) restore the power of the presidency. By reaching so hard to meet both goals, they have--quite ironically and at great cost--gotten us into a very lonely tie-down in Iraq and diminished the presidency and U.S. stature in the world.

When you are that obvious in your fears, you hand your enemies everything they need to destroy you.

Again, history's judgment will be very harsh.

Comments

[Doug]

"(Cheney and Rummy have) gotten us into a very lonely tie-down in Iraq and diminished the presidency and U.S. stature in the world."

I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but I supported the Iraq invasion and occupation and still do.

I love Tom's stuff, but the above quotation doesn't make sense to me. Tom also supported the invasion and occupation, if I read him correctly. He is critical of the diplomacy associated with the formation of the coalition the methods of the occupation. Fine as far as the methods of the occupation go - that can be freely second guessed ad infinitium. However, if you refer honestly back to 2002-3, you have to acknowledge that under no circumstance whatsoever would France, Germany and the UN have supported an invasion and occupation of Iraq. This had nothing to do with negotiation skills. Bismarck and Metternich together couldn't have pulled that off, much less the greatest stateman in history, James Baker III (that was meant to be a joke). Bush made a bold decision to take matters into his own hand. I believe the only choices back then were to "go it alone" (apologies to the coaltion of the willing and their sacrifices), or leave Saddam in power.

I think in judging the current situation, we have to ask ourselves what the realistic alternatives were. I believe leaving Saddam in power was in the long term much more destablizing to the area than the situation that exists today. I personally expected at least these difficulties before the invasion started. In fact it's gone better than I thought. I expect worse to come before the situation improves, if it ever does. Nonetheless, I can contruct a multitude of "Saddam remained" scenarios that scare me alot more than what's coming down the pike now.

[Anonymous]

Doug, i'm glad you love Tom's stuff, but it frankly doesn't seem like you know it very well, at least on this issue. Tom doesn't care much about France, Germany or the UN. he's on the record that we should have had 50k each Russian, Chinese, and Indian peacekeepers. he's also a big critic of 'if you don't show up for the war, don't bother with the peace, and forget about the contracts'. more instances of Bush as divider.

as screwed up as the occupation is, i try to hope, with Tom, that we can salvage a three-nation solution from this situation, and eventually get some pressure on Iran and Saudi Arabia, but it's hard to hope...

[Paul]

Simply comes down to - and the record holds - Bush admin can only break things - after that they're tapped out. Works for the heat of the moment - after that creative solutions are required and it's not possible here.

Diplomacy isn't an option simply because it's not in the tool set. Time for a new approach - which I don't define as retreat as the partisan debate would have it framed.