A mighty tree has fallen in the Republican foreign policy establishment, senatorial division. Indiana Senator Richard Lugar has publicly broken with Bush’s Iraq policy, signaling what may be the leading edge of a much broader exodus amongst rank-and-file G.O.P. lawmakers. Many of these senators and congresspeople are watching the polls and worrying about their prospects for fending off anti-war challengers if this Iraq business doesn’t roll to a stop before fall of 2008. Others are probably just sick of hearing about dead and grievously wounded constituents. Dubya, for his part, obviously couldn’t care less. In some ways, he’s strikingly similar to his predecessor in the White House, at least with respect to his disregard for the health of his party. Oh sure, Bush, Rove, and Tom Delay tried to rig Washington into a G.O.P.-only club, but look where they have brought the party after six years. Pretty much the only thing they have a firm grip on now is the Supreme Court, which can be relied upon to hand down draconian decisions and maybe decide an election in a pinch. That’s enough to win… but not to govern.

So… if a mighty tree falls and no one in the White House gives a damn, does it make a sound? We already know the answer to that one. We’ve seen generals and low-ranking officers turn against this war. We’ve seen mothers of the slain, conservative “freedom fries” loving congressmen, and the vast majority of the American public turn against it. And yet still it continues, with another 100+ U.S. deaths in June and an appalling number of Iraqis wasted. Absent any willingness on the part of the Congress to use their power of the purse, there is only one locus of power with regard to our overseas military deployment. Bush and Cheney (that hybrid executive-legislative extra-constitutional being) are the only ones who can call it off, and they’re not budging before the moving van arrives on January 20, 2008. Their obstinacy is all they have left.

It is remarkable, though, the extent to which they’ve discredited not only military adventurism (resuscitated temporarily by the Gulf War) but, more generally, the U.S.’s capacity for getting its way in the world. We still have plenty of weight to throw around, make no mistake – both economic and military – but that easy way we had of getting ordinarily compliant governments to line up behind us (or in front of us) is not what it once was. Just this week it was reported that African nations are bridling at the prospect of hosting permanent U.S. bases on the continent to support the Pentagon’s new “Africa Command”. Even notoriously corrupt western-oriented (i.e. able to be bribed) leaders are afraid that any movement in that direction will provoke an awful backlash from the populace, which trusts neither American power nor the motives behind its application. (Recall that Africa is now a substantial source of petroleum for the U.S.) Russia is off the reservation and Latin America is in open revolt (both are committing the mortal affront of putting their national and regional interests ahead of our own).

So what remains for us, as our congressional leadership sits on its hand, but to watch the empire crumble? I’m sure there are many in the world who feel it’s about time.

luv u,

jp

The “new” Middle East is emerging, and it isn’t at all pretty – a child, in fact, that only its mother (the Bush administration) could love. When a massive military presence on main street Ramadi is considered freedom, you know something is dreadfully wrong with this picture. But then freedom is a very malleable word, one that enables scoundrels to sound high-minded while in fact speaking a portion of the grisly truth. “Freedom” may sound like human rights, but what they’re really talking about is the freedom to apply power at will. Pirates’ freedom, or perhaps more accurately, the freedom of the mafia don. Our standard is clear: a regime loves freedom if it is compliant with our directives. If not, it is radical, dictatorial, extreme. Uri Avnery, the great Israeli peace activist, sums it up quite neatly in a recent column. Palestinians are “moderate” if they follow U.S. orders and “pragmatic” if they follow Israel’s orders.

Clearly Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is both “moderate” and “pragmatic”, joining Bush and Olmert in roundly condemning Hamas (which is neither). Rather than criticize Israel and the “Quartet” for systematically strangling Gaza while allowing the expansion of settlements and related infrastructure in the West Bank, Abbas is working in coordination with the powers that have denied his people their most basic national and human rights for the last four decades. These are, of course, the same powers that sign his paycheck and provide his security forces with arms, so how can Abbas not be compromised in the eyes of most Palestinians, who have nothing… not even a national identity. They see the Palestinian Authority living relatively affluent lives, eating well amid screaming poverty, bowing to their occupiers… and so they vote for Hamas, not just in Gaza, mind you, but throughout the West Bank, as well. They exercised their right to choose their own leaders late last year, and now they are being punished for not having legitimized the “leaders” we chose for them. There’s Bush’s democracy.

If it weren’t so grim, it would be almost laughable to hear Dubya clumsily working his rhetoric around this situation when he and Olmert have so obviously undermined the very principles the claim to champion. Pundits in the U.S. media – those critical of Bush – fault him for being “disengaged” from the Israel / Palestine issue, but the problem is just the opposite. That lack of progress in reaching a comprehensive peace agreement? That’s what they’ve accomplished, with the full cooperation of the Israeli government. Bush has involved himself deeply, pouring money and arms into one Palestinian side, strangling the other (and 1.5 million civilians along with it), and fomenting this conflict under the watchful eye of their Middle East point person, Elliot Abrams, who by rights should be spooning gruel in a Nicaraguan prison right now. The result is quite typical for this administration – a total disaster, people at one another’s throats, that sort of thing. More birth pangs, and with a midwife like Abrams, you can see what this sucker is going to look like when it grows up.

The new Middle East – slouching soon towards a Bethlehem near you.

luv u,

jp