A note to our readers: BTC News is inviting you to submit questions to be asked of a White House spokesman who has agreed to answer on the record the ones we select. If you’d like to join in the exercise, read the invitation and leave your questions in the comments section.

Harsh words about US operations in Iraq aren’t unusual but when they come on the record from a senior US diplomat, something’s up. Alberto Fernandez, who holds down the Near East public diplomacy desk in the state department, told Al Jazeera yesterday that “there is much room for criticism [of US efforts] because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq.”

Fernandez’ comments come amid a near-unprecedented campaign of official and unofficial signals that the US is contemplating substantial changes in its approach to Iraq. Former secretary of state James Baker and others associated with the Iraq Study Group, a collection of diplomats and scholars tasked with developing alternatives to sitting around Baghdad blowing things up and getting blown up, have been offering up a steady stream of on and off the record hints about the policies they’re contemplating, while US officials including defense secretary Don Rumsfeld and US ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad have issued ominous statements about the waning US patience with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al Maliki’s fumbling attempts to reign in the violence there. The New York Times has a story today citing unnamed senior US officials describing a “blueprint” of security milestones to which the Iraqi government is expected to adhere during the next months and years.

So what’s going on? Has the Bush administration finally come to its collective senses and recognized the necessity for change? Do the president’s remarks about the similarities between the current level of violence in Iraq and the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam signal an existential epiphany on his part?

Nah. Amid all the uproar, Bush is sailing serenely forward on the course he has advocated all along, which is to do what we’re doing only more or less so as circumstances demand. In this instance, the circumstances are composed of equal parts the ongoing destruction of Iraq and the ongoing destruction of Republican electoral hopes.

The lesson that neoconservatives took from the Tet offensive is that the North Vietnamese lost that collection of battles, badly, and that had the US held firm in its resolve we would have won the war. When Bush says he recognizes similarities between then and now, he means that he sees the upsurge in violence as a purely political problem and not one that should raise any uncertainties about our prospects in Iraq or impose any changes on our conduct there. From his radio address yesterday:

[One] reason for the recent increase in attacks is that the terrorists are trying to influence public opinion here in the United States. They have a sophisticated propaganda strategy. They know they cannot defeat us in the battle, so they conduct high-profile attacks, hoping that the images of violence will demoralize our country and force us to retreat. They carry video cameras and film their atrocities, and broadcast them on the Internet. They e-mail images and video clips to Middle Eastern cable networks like al-Jazeera, and instruct their followers to send the same material to American journalists, authors, and opinion leaders. They operate websites, where they post messages for their followers and readers across the world.
…
The terrorists are trying to divide America and break our will, and we must not allow them to succeed. So America will stand with the democratic government of Iraq. We will help Prime Minister Maliki build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself, and defend itself. And we will help Iraq become a strong democracy that is a strong ally in the war on terror.

That doesn’t sound much like someone casting around for an alternative strategy, does it? It sounds much more like someone who will, once the elections are over and Republicans either have or have not lost control of one or both chambers of Congress, continue doing what he’s been doing all along and what no one will persuade him not to do now.

Much of what we’re hearing from various sources about the desire for changes in Iraq is real. Many administration officials would dearly love to see some fundamental shifts in our policy. The problem is that none of those officials are in a position to make that happen, and neither are any of the GOP politicians hollering “Amen!” from the cheap seats. James Baker may genuinely want to see changes as well but his primary job is, as always, to pull the nearest Bush butt out of a fire. That means trying to minimize the electoral damage facing the president and his party, and that means catering, at least for a few weeks, to the obvious public disgust over Iraq. When the dust clears on November 8, win or lose, a great many of the voices now clamoring for change will fall unaccountably silent. What we’re witnessing is in large part a political stunt.

The Iraq Study Group isn’t due to release its report until early next year. The new Congress, whatever its makeup, won’t be seated until early next year. Between now and then, you can expect a steady increase in the sectarian violence and an explosion, literally, of clashes between the US and Moqtada al Sadr’s militia. After the ISG report is released and the new Congress is seated, you can expect George Bush to ignore the wishes of the ISG, if in fact they run contrary to his own, and you can expect George Bush to double-damn guarantee y’all that he won’t be knuckling under to a bunch of panty-waist cut’n'run Democrats. Because he doesn’t have to: under the theory of the unitary executive and the rights of kings, his obligation to you, me, Congress and the courts is nil, and unless someone hauls him off in chains, which no one has the right to do, that’s the way it’s gonna stay.

Speaking of arrogant and stupid: let’s talk about Donald Rumsfeld for a moment.

The Iraqi government is going to have to take over its country’s security “sooner rather than later,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday, as the violence there continued to escalate.

Rumsfeld said U.S. officials, including Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, are working with the Iraqi government to develop projections as to when they think they can pass off various pieces of responsibility. He provided no detail.

“The biggest mistake would be to not pass things over to the Iraqis, create a dependency on their part, instead of developing strength and capacity and competence,” said Rumsfeld. “It’s their country, they’re going to have to govern it, they’re going to have to provide security for it, and they’re going to have to do it sooner rather than later. And that means they’ve got to take pieces of it as we go along.”

Imagine yourself a proud homeowner. You’re outside admiring your house, or perhaps it’s just a hovel, but you take a bit of pride in it. Along comes some guy from across town or the next city or even a few states over. He says “Man, what a dump. I’m going to fix that for you.” And he pulls out some grenades, lobs them into your home and then, while you stare in horrified fascination at your exploding domicile, he proceeds to blow up the water line and cut your phone wires. And then he says, “Man, you’ve got about two minutes to put that fire out before your place is gone for good. I’d like to help but you might get dependent on me. By the way, shouldn’t you be pulling your wife and kids out of there instead of standing around gawking? See ya.”

Words fail. We’re the subjects of monsters. They’re not going to morph into angels or even normal fallible well-intentioned human beings overnight.

UPDATE: State department spokesman Sean McCormack says that according to Fernandez, the Al Jazeera and Associated Press translations of the “arrogance and stupidity” portion of his remarks are inaccurate. From Reuters:

The U.S. State Department had said earlier that a translation of the comments posted on Al Jazeera’s English language Web site misquoted Fernandez.

“What he (Fernandez) says is that it is not an accurate quote,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. Asked whether he thought the United States would be judged as being arrogant, McCormack said “No.”

No word on whether the state department has any quarrel with the rest of the translation.

Like this post? Share it!