It is absolutely necessary for Bush to maintain huge numbers of American forces in Iraq so that he can mount a campaign to invade Iran by claiming "Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people."
If our military forces are not in Iraq, his arguments are moot.
I am the horrified witness to a ghoulish chess game being played out in Washington.
The chess pieces are our military forces on the ground in Iraq. One side wants to keep these forces safe, to safely redeploy them out of the cauldron of civil insurgency that is now Iraq, to name dates when redeployment may begin, either to home or to surrounding countries.
Home. How many of these helpless chess pieces will see home again?
How many of them will see home again whole of both body and soul?
The Grand Inquisitor will have none of it.
As cited in http://www.zmag.org/...
The Grand Inquisitor demands a "clean" bill—a blank check—without any restrictions or timetables. He is God Almighty. He is sole owner of all of the chess pieces on the board and only He will determine their fates.
The Grand Inquisitor pompously declares that he is bringing democracy to the Middle East and keeping all of us, the entire world even, safe from terrorism.
The other chess pieces on the board are the people of Iraq, or what was formerly Iraq. How strange it is that the Grand Inquisitor is deaf to the pleas of "democratized" Iraqis to remove our forces from their supposedly "sovereign" nation. How strange it is that the Grand Inquisitor is deaf to even the removal of a private contractor, Blackwater USA, despite the Iraqi government's legislation to end the legal immunity enjoyed by private security contractors after a deadly shooting involving Blackwater USA.
The Grand Inquisitor holds all of the chess pieces on the board hostage. Our pieces, our military forces in Iraq, the opposing pieces, the people of Iraq, all of them are held hostage in the web of the Grand Inquisitor who thinks he has a far grander plan than ending the violence on the chess board.
Oil. Operation Iraq Liberation. Soon to morph into Operation Iran Liberation. Power. Control of all sources of energy. Pure raw power.
The old lies no longer work. The lies that brought us into the quaqmire that used to be known as Iraq. But now there are chess pieces to be held hostage. New lies to be devised. There is a hopeful gleam in the eye of the Grand Inquisitor as he croons of nuclear ambitions in Iran, IAEA says nuclear bombs are years away in Iran. Now we believe actually believe the IAEA more than the Grand Inquisitor. The Grand Inquisitor snarls and denounces IAEA for "irresponsible meddling."
But, it's not working this time. The Grand Inquisitor is desperate. Time is running out. How to execute the grand program, American global leadership, the United States as the world's preeminent power, a new world, a new century favorable to American "principles" and interests, military strength, power, power, power.
He clutches at the chess pieces. Our chess pieces. They will not be redeployed from the board of death. They will stay there forever.
They will be the sacrificial lambs whom forces in Iran allegedly threaten. If these piece are threatened by Iran, why then the Grand Inquisitor can bomb Iran. Absolutely no mention is made of Saudi Arabian funding of Sunni insurgents who daily attack our forces.
He, the Grand Inquisitor, refuses to budge. Congress grants him a number of sacrificial pawns. No deadlines, no restrictions, all the money you want, Grand Inquisitor, thus signing the death warrants of hundreds of pawns.
They even go so far as to name the Iranian Republican Guard a terrorist group in order to placate the Grand Inquisitor. But still he is not satisfied.
He will never be satisfied. His opposition quails and quivers. How many more pawn chess piece death warrants will they sign in order to placate him?
As it now proceeds, we will not know until the middle of 2009 how many of the Grand Inqisitor's pawns, supposedly our pawns, will be sacrificed, if we are still around to bear witness.