Open Thread - Bush Has Lost Control Edition

by Steve

Image courtesy of Huffington Post and Time

Thanks to everyone for keeping things moving this weekend while I focused on other things. As we head into a new week, some comments:

David Sanger of the New York Times writes a good analysis for Monday’s paper on how Bush has now reluctantly seen his policy of preemption hit the toilet, thanks in large part to the mistake he made in Iraq which in effect limited his ability to do anything when he needed to about the other two members of the Axis of Evil. Iraq blew up Bush’s rhetoric and has consigned his whole foreign policy to the dustbin. Time Magazine's cover story this week is the same theme. (Hat tip to Christopher)

And if you don’t believe me on this, check out how close Iraq is once again to outright civil war. After an attack at a Shiite shrine Saturday, the Shiites retaliated Sunday by randomly killing dozens of Sunnis on the streets of Baghdad, dragging them out of their homes and cars and executing them. This took place right under the nose of the Americans and Iraqi security forces, crippling al-Maliki’s demand that the militias lay down their arms and submit to Iraqi national control. It will put al-Maliki in a bad spot before the end of this week of either siding with the Americans for security needs after the increasing atrocities and dereliction of duty from the Pentagon, or pushing the Americans around to placate the factions.

I only have limited speculation about what GOP hack committee chairman Pete Hoekstra is really doing and I will defer to EmptyWheel and TexasDem on this. But don’t be surprised if Hoekstra just realized after five years that Cheney and Rummy had thrown Congress out of the information loop and no longer wanted him to have a seat at the table at a time when he thought they shared his desire to blow up the Agency. In fact, they want to hold all of the intelligence and spy programs close to their vests and not let Congress have any oversight of it, and Petey just figured that out. It would be nice if Jane Harman figured out a way to box Hoekstra into a corner so that he would really cause the White House problems, but I’ve given up hope on that.

As Josh noted late last night, and we noted weeks ago, Bush is losing control of events overseas, and after five years has no good answers in Iran or North Korea, and no way out in Iraq. Yet the Cheney and Rummy cabal will spend more energy hanging on to power than they will in fixing anything or sharing the intel, and now his base and congressional sycophants know it.

OK, it's your turn.