Who's Next

I think Bush will either go for Syria or the Palestinians…

I think Bush is done with war for this term. Barring anything unforseen. War is only poular to a point.

Besides Syria unlike Iraq freely admits to having WMD and WILL use them in defence. I also do not belive the arab world would stand for an invasion of Syria. I think going to war with Syria would war throughout the middle east. Call it another Arab/Israeli war only add in US forces.

@dezrtfish:

Call it another Arab/Israeli war only add in US forces.

and i dont think isreal would be able to win with conventional weaponry this time

Like the prime poster (dubya also gatorade) sez, “same as the old war.”

What is our new mode of war these days? Superclass first-world US force takes on third-world (Iraq) or even fourth-world (Afghanistan) force.
Good job mashing the Taliban, but the followup is crumbly.
Masterful work trashing the Saddam’s Baaths, but winning the peace looks a bit prickly.
Where to next that fits the pattern? Find a place that’s already pitifully screwed up… apply our might… declare victory and an end to hostilities… apply bandaids… scan abroad with haste for the next glorious adventure.

This is no way to run an empire. It is also a cruel way to ruin the morale of our armed forces. Anyone see “Gladiator” – what did the most gifted, loyal and charismatic warrior in the empire really want? To go home to his family and his farm. Who betrayed him? The political rulers, far from the battlefield… which makes me wish McCain would run again for President. None of these military geniuses – Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz – ever served a day in a combat zone. It seems W didn’t even bother to serve out his draft-evading National Guard duty.

So who’s next?

They seem to be attempting a Chile-style (1973) coup d’etat in Iran… stay tuned. But it would be extremely unlikely that we will send in masses of troops. Also doubtful is Syria or, I think, anywhere else in the Middle East. Bush (that is, Karl Rove, his chief campaign advisor) has already shifted gears. Last year he shifted from fighting terrorism to decapitating an Arab state. More recently he has shifted from making war to earning a peace trophy. Please note that his most consistent activity over the past three weeks is collecting huge trunks of dough at pre-election lunches, speeches and dinners. It started as soon as he parked his Roger Ramjet stage prop on that aircraft carrier.

I agree with several posters who note that we are too close to the active electoral campaigning for a shooting war – unless used with skillful timing in late summer 2004 as a distraction from the damn hit-and-run sniping against our troops that we seem destined to endure in Iraq for a long while to come.

Things in Iran could move through several sharp-turn phases over the next 12 months. At such a juncture when the government there has changed hands, is on shaky ground, but remains defiant on making and owning nuclear power and/or weapons, perhaps then we could see US-led military intervention there (summer 2004).

In the meantime, however, the White House is focused, as it must be, on plans to destroy the prospects of several would-be world leaders, by the name of Kerry, Lieberman, et al. Phase One of this “war” will be concluded by spring 2004.

Hey – it’s term limits in spades, baby. The 22nd amendment to the Constitution, I believe. If Bush could be elected over and over again, then maybe he wouldn’t be in such a hurry to shift gears. Maybe our campaign to root out the baddest guys across the Islamic crescent from Morocco to Pakistan would be more methodical, allowing for beneficial alliances, timely consolidation, logical progression, clear and unifying principles, and new benign structures of stability and prevention. Maybe. But it ain’t.

@Z:

This is no way to run an empire.

W ain’t playin’ Civilization!

But considering what he’s done ya got to give it time.
Compare it to Clinton’s Somalia pullout, Haiti mess, Serbia/Kosovo slaughter, or bombing an aspirin factory(smaller scale.)

@guest:

I agree, give Bush some time. His exploits may yet equal Clinton’s.

Nobody can come close to touching Clinton’s mistakes. :(

Who’s next? Give it 10 years, and it just might be?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/international/asia/25PREX.html?th

Give us a synopsis please, I don’t feel like signing up with the NY Times. :P

Yeah CC, don’t leave us hangin’

Shamelessly ripped from the NY Times. Basically my point is that the US is helping out Pakistan - as it did Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Will this be a 10 year time bomb too?

Bush Offers Pakistan Aid, but No F-16’s
By DAVID E. SANGER

AMP DAVID, Md., June 24 — President Bush offered Pakistan a tightly conditioned package of $3 billion in aid today, a move that seemed intended to bolster an unsteady ally that only two years ago was still under strict American sanctions for defying the United States by developing its own nuclear weapons program.

But in a lengthy meeting today with Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, here at the presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains, Mr. Bush said he would not provide the F-16 fighters that Pakistan has sought for 14 years. A senior administration official said that Mr. Bush had made clear that the new package of aid was dependent on continued cooperation in battling terrorism and a permanent end to assisting the North Korean nuclear program.

General Musharraf, who has publicly denied that his country aided North Korea in building uranium-enrichment facilities, told the president that he understood that any kind of military aid to the North is “a no-go area,” the senior official told reporters today.

Much as he hands out visits to his Texas ranch as a badge of alliance solidarity, or a sense of closeness to some allies, Mr. Bush invited General Musharraf for an unusual midweek visit to Camp David as a way of elevating the status of his trip to the United States.

He praised the general, who gained power in a 1999 military takeover, for working “to build a modern Pakistan that is tolerant and prosperous.” That praise reflected General Musharraf’s decision to align himself with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Mr. Bush’s father suspended all aid to Pakistan in 1990 for refusing to stop its nuclear program.

Now Mr. Bush and his aides seem to regard the nuclear capacity as a fait accompli, and they are again using the lure of aid and trade to help General Musharraf fend off fundamentalists who seek an Islamic state with an Islamic bomb.

So today marked the first time in years that Washington has talked of a long-term aid program for the country, one whose details are still undefined. Administration officials said today that it would require Congressional approval, and that General Musharraf understands that failure to democratize, curb terrorism and stop proliferation would halt aid. “I’m not calling those conditions,” a senior administration official told reporters, “but let’s be realistic. Three years down the road, if things are going badly in those areas, it’s not going to happen.”

General Musharraf and Mr. Bush appeared at ease with each other at Camp David today and chatted about their new-found closeness. But in private, Mr. Bush’s aides say they are concerned that General Musharraf’s promises to democratize Pakistan are moving slowly at best, and that his political support is eroding.

They are concerned about the general’s control over his country’s nuclear infrastructure — particularly the Khan Research Laboratory, which appears to be the source of aid to North Korea — which one senior official said recently could be “weaker than advertised.”

“It’s the country that worries us the most,” one official said in an interview last week, “because it’s the only nuclear power in danger of falling into the wrong hands.”

Pakistan and India were both subject to severe economic sanctions after they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998. But those sanctions were largely lifted after the Sept. 11 attacks. Now, with the proposal of aid, Mr. Bush has gone in the opposite direction, rewarding Pakistan for its help in pursuing terrorists —including the arrest of more than 500 people both governments say are suspected of links to Al Qaeda and deployment for the first time of the Pakistan Army in the restive border region with Afghanistan.

Officials said that Mr. Bush spoke only in private — not during their public sessions — about worries that Pakistan has become a major source of proliferation.

In the past, General Musharraf has denied that his government provided North Korea with the designs for centrifuges to enrich uranium, which American officials suspect has been used to create a second nuclear project. But American intelligence agencies say that the evidence appears solid, and last fall they said that American satellites watched as a Pakistan Air Force aircraft picked up missiles last summer in North Korea. Some officials believe that was payment for the nuclear technology.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has said he has been assured by General Musharraf that all aid to North Korea had ended. But the issue remains enormously sensitive, and one reason to keep even General Musharraf’s Pakistan at some distance by refusing, for instance, to deliver the 71 F-16’s.

In December 1998, the United States paid Pakistan $325 million for Washington’s decision not to deliver the jets. But the issue has never gone away in Islamabad, and Mr. Bush said today, to laughter, that “the president is not afraid to bring up the issue of F-16’s — he has been a strong advocate for the sale of F-16’s to Pakistan.”

American officials say that any agreement to sell planes would enrage India. The administration also fears giving military aid that could, in a change of government, end up in the wrong hands.

Well, if you give them money, there’s a lot more things that they can do to put it to use, including “fighting terrorism” (hint,hint :wink: ). Plus, you can put stipulations on what they are/are-not allowed to do with the money.

I take it you have some problem with this whole arrangement CC? Countries ask us for things everyday, that doesn’t neccessarily mean we have to cater to them. :-?

@Deviant:Scripter:

Well, if you give them money, there’s a lot more things that they can do to put it to use, including “fighting terrorism” (hint,hint :wink: ). Plus, you can put stipulations on what they are/are-not allowed to do with the money.

I take it you have some problem with this whole arrangement CC? Countries ask us for things everyday, that doesn’t neccessarily mean we have to cater to them. :-?

i don’t “have a problem with this”. It’s just the ironic sad laugh that comes out when you see America funding another country (middle-east, strong Islamic ties, a population that does not appear to embrace America they way “they should”) to help them deal with terrorism. In my mind this might well be another term for “the cold war” or “Iran” in 10 years.