Forget about the Democratic push for change. Whether or not the Dems win back one or both houses of Congress, there are indications that at least one Bush administration policy is going to change, whether the president likes it or not. That policy is Iraq. First from the Guardian's Julian Borger, with a hat tip to Steven Clemons of TWN, who is also quoted in the piece:
A "polite rebellion" is under way among previously loyal allies of President Bush aimed at persuading him to change course in Iraq and quietly abandon the foreign policy doctrine he had hoped would be the centrepiece of his legacy. Many senior Republicans believe the "Bush Doctrine" has hit a wall in Iraq and lies in ruins. The rebels, including many foreign policy veterans close to the president's father, see it as an obstacle to stabilising Iraq and extricating US forces. But they have decided that earlier, head-on challenges have only deepened the president's resolve, and a less confrontational approach was needed that avoided blame for past mistakes if there was to be any hope of a fundamental rethink.
"It's a polite rebellion by moderate and military-minded Republicans," said Steven Clemons, a Washington analyst. "Any walk-away from the Bush line is going to be covered with a lot of cosmetics to make it look like it's not really a big change."
The focus of the new approach is the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a bipartisan commission co-chaired by the first President Bush's secretary of state, James Baker, which will present its recommendations after the November elections.
Those elections are another reason for urgency. If the Democrats capture the House of Representatives, as expected, they will be in a position to cut funding for the war if they are not listened to. Even if they fall short of an absolute majority in the Senate, there are now Republican senators signalling that they could side with the opposition if there is not a decisive rethink on Iraq. David Mack, a diplomat in the first Bush administration who helped rally Arab support for the Gulf War, said: "We are really at a point where any talk of victory is an illusion."
These points are all speculative, but they are part of the roster of topics many senior foreign policy hands think may be in the Baker-Hamilton report.
I spoke with someone close to Senator John Warner last night who confirmed that the Senator has not been misunderstood by the media. He is determined to compel the White House to change course in Iraq if the Oval Office doesn't do it on its own.
The problem with the Baker-Hamilton Report is that it doesn't solve the internal policy management and implementation problems inside the White House. Baker becomes just another voice of other contending voices -- and even if elevated to be the President's Special Envoy for the Middle East, it's not clear that the deep dysfunction that exists now and which paralyzes the inter-agency process will be fixed.
Cheney's team must be neutralized and set to the side of the policy process -- clearly demoted and moved out of the way for any Baker type plan to succeed in shaping an alternative direction.
Many see Rumsfeld's days now being really, really, really numbered -- and that he'll be gone soon. But that is not enough.
Cheney controls the interagency process through his minions. They need to be identified, demoted, moved to desks with good views of the garden, and kept away from this next round of policy work, coordination, and implementation.
Clemons reports that Cheney remains the biggest roadblock to implementing changes in U.S. Iraq policy. But he is coming up against a growing list of disgruntled Republicans -- even Kay Bailey Hutchinson for god's sake, and she's about as big a Bush-bot as you'll find in Congress. She now calls herselfclueless on the subject in the beginning.
Part of what this proves is that while Baker may have been willing to be Dubya's bag man in Florida in 2000, he was and remains Bush I's bag man first and foremost. This is the father working his will on the son, perhaps against the son's will. Or maybe Dubya is welcoming a way to get himself out from under Dick Cheney and the neocons.
<%
dim done
done = request.form("done")
if done = "" then
done = "No"
%>
Tell a friend
<%
Else
if request.form("done") = "Yes" then
'sets variables
dim email, sendmail
email = request.form("email")
Set sendmail = Server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
'put the webmaster address here
sendmail.From = "webmaster@aspbasics.com"
'The mail is sent to the address entered in the previous page.
sendmail.To = email
'Enter the subject of your mail here
sendmail.Subject = "Check out this website"
'send a specific page or send a site url
dim url
'url = Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
url = "http://www.aspbasics.net"
'This is the content of the message.
sendmail.Body = "Site recommendation from a friend!" & _
vbCrlf & vbCrlf & "A friend has sent you this email and thought you would should check out this site." & _
vbCrlf & url & vbCrlf
'this sets mail priority.... 0=low 1=normal 2=high
sendmail.Importance = 1
sendmail.Send 'Send the email!
response.redirect Request.ServerVariables("HTTP_REFERER")
'Response.write ("Sent to ") & email
End if
End if
%>
"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
