CHENEY'S TRIP TO MIDDLE EAST MAKES NO SENSE

So VP Dick Cheney is leaving today for a trip to the Middle East. Tom Raum of the Associated Press (published today in the Washington Post) reports the countries Cheney plans to visit:

"Cheney's first stop will be Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Other announced stops include Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Cheney also will visit the aircraft carrier John C. Stennis in the Persian Gulf."

Tom Raum explains the purpose of Cheney's visit:

"Vice President Dick Cheney is reaching out to moderate Arab leaders for help in bringing stability to Iraq, a mission that will include pleas for postwar support for minority party Sunnis."

Consider this: Cheney plans to visit Arab countries with a population made up of Sunnis. There are no countries on Cheney's itinerary that have a majority of Shia. The resulting question must be how can Cheney effect any change in the catastrophic situation and civil war in Iraq if the only governments he will be visiting are Sunni regimes? Iraq is predominantly Shia. The minority Sunnis and the majority Shia in Iraq are in the throes of a fierce civil war. What does Cheney think he can accomplish? Get the Arab Sunni governments to tell their Sunni counterparts in Iraq to cool it, and thus expose themselves to the guns and bombs of their Shia enemies?

This Cheney trip exposes the desperation of Bush & Co. over the looming American defeat in Iraq. A stinging defeat self-caused by Bush and Cheney and Rice and Rumsfeld and Tenet and all those other neo-cons like Wolfowitz and Perle and Feith.