George Bush’s paean to “Mideast democracy” delivered yesterday to those august members of the right wing elite at the American Enterprise Institute created a sweeping revolutionary new U.S. policy toward Iraq. He said: “The only question at hand is total, complete disarmament, which he is refusing to do,” Oh, really?? The “total” disarmament of Iraq? Every soldier & policeman? Not just those big, bad nuclear warheads which he’s having so much trouble finding? I always thought our policy was to dismantle Sadaam’s weapons of mass destruction and that we’d let it go at that. Well, this is news to me and to the rest of his Administration I’m sure.
Do we chalk this up to George’s usual imprecision & tendency to nudge reality linguistically in odd directions. Or did he really mean what he said? If he meant it & someone actually wrote that into his speech–do they realize what a radical shift in policy this is? Can anyone in the world (including those advocating war) say that we have the right to completely disarm Iraq?
And who does he think he’s fooling when he claims that with America’s shining beacon of liberty as its guide, Iraq will soon enter the “palace of nations” enjoying liberty. Iraq, while it has had some remarkable forms of government througout its history (leaving aside Sadaam), has never known democracy. Why would democracy work in Iraq? Perhaps it will work at the mouths of 100,000 M-16s. But what happens after the GIs leave?
