William Kristol has an article in today's The Washington Post that exposes the leading Republican theorist to serious charges that he is delusional and not quite with reality. Kristol admits as much but claims it would be only "harmless ridicule." Here's the gist of his article. Bush will emerge as a politically victorious president because 1) he will "win" in Iraq; 2) he has created a "strong" economy; 3) he has appointed "impressive" judges (Alito and Roberts) to the Supreme Court; 4) there have been no terrorist attacks in the U.S. since 9/11; 5) Saddam Hussein has been overthrown (and hanged), and thus an enemy of America who had nuclear weapons ambitions and "ties" to Al Qaeda is no longer; and 6) the U.S. will elect a Republican successor to Bush in 2008.
Kristol's arguments turn out to be more wishful than predictive. For example, the notion that Bush will "win" in Iraq because he has his Ulysses S. Grant in General David Petraeus is simply pie in the sky. Neither Petraeus nor Bush has any solution whatsoever to the internecine hatred between the Shias, Sunnis and Kurds. Fighting will continue between these groups at every point that they intersect, and no U.S. propaganda or spin that the "real enemy" is Qaeda in Iraq will stop the killing.
Secondly, any connection between Bush and a strong economy is purely accidental. It is Bush who turned a Clinton surplus of 300 billion into a yearly deficit of more than 200 billion. It is Bush who refuses to list the true annual costs of the stupid war in Iraq in his annual budget. Imagine how much better the economy would do if the 100 billion or more Bush has wasted on Iraq every year was invested in infrastructure and job creation here in the U.S.
Thirdly, Alito and Roberts are far from "impressive." They have consistently voted for big business over the interests of the little guy. They say in law school that between 1875 and 1950, in any case between a railroad and the little guy, the railroad always won. With Alito and Roberts, we have turned back the clock to those days. And Kristol thinks that these conservative hacks are "impressive"?
Fourthly, the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks in the U.S. just goes to show that proper police action, not full scale military war, has been effective in monitoring and preventing criminal action. Furthermore, it may be that the radical Islamists have no desire to mount another criminal action in the U.S. for whatever reason of their own. In other words, they accomplished their mission on 9/11 more than they could have imagined, because they provoked Bush and Cheney to waste innumerable resources of the United States, lives, money, religious hatred, world turmoil, in invading and occupying an Arab country for specious reasons.
Fifth, Kristol claims if Bush had not invaded Iraq, Saddam "might well have restarted his nuclear program, and his connections with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups would be intact or revived and even strengthened." Here Kristol is really blowing smoke. What ties with Al Qaeda? Saddam had no ties with bin Laden's Qaeda. The two were enemies. Saddam was a secular Baathist. Bin Laden, as we all know, believes in a worldwide Sunni caliphate where the law of the world would be sharia. Yet Kristol cannot let go of the Republican fiction that there is a connection between Qaeda of 9/11 and Saddam Hussein.
And Kristol even goes on to add "other terrorist groups." Please Mr. Kristol, what are you talking about? Specify the groups you mean. Name those other terrorist groups. If you do not or cannot, then you should not say or claim things for which you have absolutely no evidence or basis.
Finally, Kristol opines the citizenry will elect a Republican successor to Bush in 2008. This guy is simply delusional. The whole country has had its fill of Bush and his Republican militarists. Good luck to people like Kristol who believe that if they say it enough, it will come true.
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