Bush Uses "Strategery" Against Iraq, the U.N. and the Democrats

This is my first, and possibly last, vanity post. I have held back from starting a thread on this article for months, and have posted various aspects of my "strategery" theory in different posts on different threads, but am dying to discuss it in its own thread, because I think it is important enough a theory to stand on its own. In fact, this article is mostly boilerplated from this post, which evolved out of a discussion about the American hero Captain Michael Scott Speicher, may God bless his name.

Granted, my theories about George W. Bush are speculative, and time may prove me wrong (we will know soon enough). But my thoughts arise from many months of study, observation and contemplation, and, so far, the passage of time only seems to confirm my hunches about the man and his methods. And you should know, my first impressions of George W. Bush were by no means flattering. Those impressions have been tempered by numerous events since his ascendancy to the presidency. But make no mistake: I am not a Bush groupie by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I think We the People need to make sure he doesn't accumulate too much presidential power, but that's another topic for a different thread.

In my opinion, the upcoming war in Iraq is an excellent and illustrative vignette that encapsulates the understated brilliance of the man we call "Dubya".

In this chapter of the Bush presidency, I believe he is using Iraq to accomplish several strategic goals in one stroke. I believe his cabinet and advisors are fully on board with him, because success in Iraq will be a masterful stroke of military and diplomatic cleverness.

I am fairly convinced that the Bush administration is in possession of some very hard evidence that Iraq not only has weapons of mass destruction and has been positioning them for use, but also has provable ties to active terrorist organizations, probably but not necessarily including Al Qaeda. The ties may even involve safe harboring of many terrorists in Iraq, which would partially explain why the U.S. has been quietly surrounding Iraq with troops and security agreements (such as with Jordan) for more than a year.

Iraq may very well be Afghanistan II, with the toppling of a hostile regime and terrorist hunt scenario. Except in this case, the stakes are raised, because Saddam is much craftier than Mullah Omar, and the Iraqi military has much greater resources than the Taliban (remember them?) ever dreamed of.

I think it is extremely unlikely that Bush will invade Iraq without the hard evidence he needs to put egg on the face of the U.N. and the Democrats, both of whom he despises and both of whom will look like idiots once the truth comes out.

Why hold back the evidence, rather than using it to build a groundswell of domestic and international support? I think there are two main reasons, as well as several lesser ones:

Reason 1: Military and intelligence security. Saddam knows we know about his weapons and evil intentions. However, he doesn't know exactly what or how much we know. If he did know, he would quietly take steps to both eliminate the evidence (or move it out of sight) and eliminate those assets that revealed it. He could have an entire weapons program's staff and their families tortured and slaughtered without batting an eye, and has a reputation for exactly that. As Sun Tzu and every other great military leader has pointed out again and again, deception is the greatest weapon of war.

Reason 2: Politics. The invasion of Kuwait by Iraq was an obvious and egregious enough act to build support for a coalition to drive Saddam out. Revelations of nasty weapons, terrorist ties and war plans are not as dramatic, and, even in the wake of 9-11, make for a harder sell to a skeptical domestic and international constituency. Naysayers who would oppose war no matter what (including the now heavily Liberal and Marxist Democratic Party, which used to be much more hawkish) have been expending their energy fighting a straw man crafted by the vague and unsupported claims made so far by the Bush administration. I find it extremely unlikely that Bush is lying about Iraq, but I notice that he has not been at all forthcoming about details. This is apparently deliberate. Those foolish enough to jump on the bandwagon against him without any real basis to do so will be utterly discredited when he lays his cards on the table. Cries of "foul" about being kept in the dark will be trumped by the legitimate need for operational security, and the naysayers will be neutralized politically. This, of course, applies to the Democrats, but especially to the U.N., the relevance of which Bush is openly challenging.

There are many other good reasons why Bush should wait until the eleventh hour before tipping his hand, including the generally mercurial nature of the American public, but I think the two reasons above are the big ones.

Consider that after Iraq is conquered, a government benevolent to the U.S. will be installed, oil will be sold in abundance to pay off Iraqi debts and rebuild the country (castrating OPEC -- and we're working on Venezuela, btw -- and, of course, the U.S. economy will flourish with all this cheap oil coming in = Bush + Republicans win again in 2004), a security agreement with the U.S. will be implemented that allows us to use Iraq as a huge, excellently positioned military base (no more begging the Saudis for permission, etc.), and puts U.S. forces in a much stronger position to pursue and eliminate both terrorist organizations and the regimes that support them, and invading Iraq is a no-brainer.

I could be wrong, but everything about the way the Bush administration is acting supports my suspicions to the tee. Everyone who has underestimated the shrewdness and wisdom of George W. Bush in the past has come to regret it. He's extremely clever, and, in my opinion, a modern Abraham Lincoln, who was also underestimated by his opponents and used it to stunning advantage.

The reason for the delay is that Saddam is quite capable of killing millions of Americans with the anthrax advertised in the letter to Daschle, and there is still nothing we can do about it. It has nothing to do with our ability to prove Saddam was behind 9/11 --- Bush is sitting on that evidence, and can release it any time he wants. The cost of saber-rattling is trivial for the United States, especially in the context of the absolute necessity of removing Saddam Hussein, no matter how difficult that may be and how long it will take. As far as the election is concerned, I don't think it's a problem. It may well be that Saddam Hussein will survive through the election. We have 25 million doses of a new civilian anthrax vaccine coming on line around the end of this year, so it is possible that we might feel emboldened to take Saddam out militarily by mid-2004. I'm not overly optimistic about that -- the vaccine stockpile will not, by itself, fix the problem, for a variety of reasons which we could talk about some other time. However, it may be possible to squeeze Saddam out by non-military means and, even if it isn't, there are many ways in which the whole situation can be escalated and the public perceptions managed to ensure that people still back Bush come election time. Bush can't hit Saddam, but, aside from that, he is holding an incredibly strong hand. I'm not worried about the political aspect, only the aspect of how the hell are we going to solve the problem of Saddam Hussein?

First off, it’s always a pleasure to talk politics with the Evil One himself.

Distributing enough anthrax to kill millions would be quite a trick, although the terror-by-mail campaign did give us a taste of the potential of well-crafted anthrax spores. I certainly wouldn't rule out the possibility that Saddam is connected to past and potential anthrax attacks on U.S. civilians, but haven't seen anything that establishes this for sure. He does seem to have had it in the past, and may very well be the source of the nasty, expertly-weaponized stuff we saw unleashed in the mail. In any event, as experience shows, he doesn’t need to kill millions to bring this nation to a halt. A few thousand (or even a few dozen) would do it.

Assuming he does have this capability, it's unlikely he'll wait for us to get vaccines online before using it. He knows he's toast one way or the other, so I strongly doubt he would allow his ace in the hole to go down the drain. So if he’s got the virus in place, ready for distribution against us, then we’re screwed either way.

As grim as it is, we Americans are going to have to learn how to take a few punches, because they are coming. If we hit the mat every time we take casualties – however terrible they may be – then we will lose for sure. As bad as 9-11 was, it would take quite a few more of them to put us in the league of London during the blitz, or Israel every single day.

We’re definitely tough enough to take it, but we’re going to have to shake off the wimpiness and self-absorption that a decade of Clintonian hedonism has oozed into our society. That will come naturally enough, as each successful attack on U.S. soil will only make us that much meaner. Woe unto those who are stupid enough to stick their tallywhackers in America’s hornet’s nest. Nobody knows just how bad we can be if we have to.

As for parking our troops over there for another year, the meter’s going to run out a long time before then. Aside from the phenomenal costs of staging all those warriors and equipment over there, the host nations will only tolerate this “standoff” for so long, and not for another year.

If Bush doesn’t cough up proof before then, his support, both foreign and domestic, will evaporate and Congress will step in and pull the plug. Not that they’re very relevant, but the U.N. would also become uncooperative and belligerent, and may even try to impose sanctions on the U.S.

If he does lay out his case soon, he’ll be fully expected to act and act quickly. Time is not on our side. As Bush knows all too well, evidence worth going to war over is good only for that, not for buying time appear to be doing nothing (even if we are feverishly cranking out vaccines and other defensive countermeasures in the meantime).

As I repeatedly maintain, I could be dead wrong, but Bush’s actions are those of a strategic offense, and specifically, a pre-emptive offense. That suggests a potential, not current domestic threat. I don’t think Bush is bluffing, because Saddam is the only person such a bluff would mean anything to, and he knows what’s in his hand.

If Saddam truly had a deadly attack set up here in the U.S., provoking Saddam would be the worst possible thing to do. We’d be better off quietly countering the threat and not giving him any overt excuse for attacking. So I just don’t see the anthrax scenario factoring in here, either because it doesn’t exist, or we have decided we can’t take the time to take defensive action before taking out Saddam.

Israel, however, is another matter altogether. We and they both know they are in mortal peril, and it’s only getting worse as time goes by. Leaving the initiative to Saddam in this case is virtual suicide, hence we attack first.

As for Saddam leaving peacefully, it’s unlikely but possible, and would be the best case scenario for Bush, the U.S., Israel, the U.N., Iraq and, frankly, for Saddam as well. That would be a great happy ending. Either way, U.S. troops are going in to Iraq and secure the country, whether they have to fight their way in or not. And then Iraq will be our new best friend with lots of cheap oil and limitless gratitude for our glorious liberation of their country from that horrible tyrant. U.S. flags will be flying all over Iraq, and not just from U.S. installations. While many Iraqis won’t care too much for U.S. occupation, I do suspect they will prefer life without Saddam. And regular meals will be a big hit, too.

Anyway, we clearly see some different scenarios being played out. The action is big enough that we’ll know which way it’s going to go very soon. I expect the balloon to go up in February, and if Saddam doesn’t yield, I think we’re going to hit him very, very hard.

I hope you enjoyed this concise reply. >;^)

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