The Petraeus Report due in September will be the beginning of the endgame for our misadventure in Iraq. No matter with what bluster Bush today begins to lay the groundwork for blaming the Democrats for losing Iraq, the reality-based world will finally impose itself on the "bubble boy" who has once again failed at a pretend job. Unfortunately for the nation, this time Papa Bush can’t simply find a convenient friend to bail his son out and make a discreet departure possible for him.
When all is said and done, Bush will not be impeached, Cheney will not be removed either, the constitution will not be defended or resurrected by the impotent congressional Democrats, but our active combat involvement will end sooner than anyone now imagines: the Repugs are about to force the Murtha Plan on Dubya, perhaps renamed the Warner Plan? When everyone in the US returns from summer vacation, it will be apparent that there is no functioning government in Iraq and we are facing an imminent and embarrassing series of disastrous events there.
It’s obvious that Gordon Brown is no poodle and the British will actually be leaving the Coalition of the Willing, but as has been predicted they will have to fight their way out in a mortifying defeat. Despite all the fears expressed by Kossacks, the neo-con desire to attack Iran is off the table. The window of opportunity has passed and the disastrous consequences that would follow will not be accepted by the Repugs in Congress or their masters in the moneyed halls of power. Bush and Cheney will stay because there is no profitable way to remove them at this point, but they have been neutered and reduced to noise-making, thus the chief rat Rove abandoning the ship stalled in the water.
All the blustering about Iran is nothing more than cover for their impotency and preparation for the redeployment of our forces to Kuwait and the Persian Gulf. Just as with Nixon’s forced resignation, a delegation of senior Repugs will visit Bush and tell him that their support is at an end. They cannot afford to walk another mile down the road with him with 2008 elections looming, Mitch McConnell and Jon Cornyn are in trouble back home, McCain couldn’t get re-elected today.
But let’s not fantasize that the Repugs will roll over and play dead, their hand will actually be strengthened by this course of events, as will the neo-cons desire to hit Iran should the Iranians continue to be foolish enough to play their game. Here’s the game-plan post Petraeus: as has already started to be the party-line the Iraqis have let us and themselves down. We shed our blood to buy their freedom and they have squandered the chance. The Surge has achieved its purpose, we have again sacrificed blood to buy them the room to maneuver, they have disappointed us again, and it’s time to force them to belly-up to the bar by withdrawing to secure locations.
Now here’s the real strategic kicker, again the groundwork has already been laid out: in our wake, the civil war will become full-blown and guess who we’ll be backing? Correct, the Sunnis! After all, look what progress they have made against Al Qaeda in Al Anbar province, both Bush and Hillary agree about that. So Iran will support the Shiites but their hands will be tied by the threat of our forces in the Gulf and Kuwait and once again the Sunnis will prevail. The Kurds will again pay the price for thinking the US’ support can be relied on long-term; they will be suppressed by both the Turks and the Iranians, and the victorious Sunnis. And lo and behold, from the Sunni heartland a new strongman will emerge, backed by the Saudis and reasonably friendly to us! We will not have an ironclad Oil Law to guarantee our control of their oil, but after losing another war I guess you have to take what you can get, huh?
So relax my fellow countrymen, all is not lost. We get to keep our SUV’s and plow ahead headlong and headstrong into our date with destiny: Global Warming. At least when the next Katrina hits (and if there really is a retributive Judea-Christian deity, lower Manhattan’s Wall Street could even be the venue) we’ll at least have our National Guard back to deal with the carnage and perhaps even a minimally competent President to preside over our inevitable decline and fall.