The word that comes to mind when considering the comprehensive failure of George W. Bush is ostentatious.
Bush epitomized the swaggering, strutting, swashbuckling stuffed-shirt of fail. Never has there been such a self-inflated braggart of bruised-ness. Commander Codpiece: The Swanker with a Wanker, flaunting his hotshot, self-glorious, stagy Top-Gun "welcome aboard" and "mission accomplished" aerial entrances straight into the pandemonium of his pre-emptive and pre-mature triumphalism, a hectoring exhibitionist, a sputtering blusterer, full of sound and fury, signifying, nay, FLAUNTING fail. If fail were a religion, he could flatter himself as the Pope, and dress the part.
You don’t need me to list all the spectacles in these eight nearly endless years of peacockery on stilts, but whatever time-line we’re composing for posterity, we must add this piece of the splurging surge to the pageantry from the Financial Times entitled:
Saudi patience is running out, By Turki al-Faisal
Prince Faisal has been director of Saudi intelligence, ambassador to the UK and Ireland, ambassador to the US, and a strong proponent if the Arab-Israeli peace process. He’s got a few things to tell Obama about the recent massacre in Gaza with respect to so-called peace processes:
But after Israel launched its bloody attack on Gaza, these pleas for optimism and co-operation now seem a distant memory. In the past weeks, not only have the Israeli Defence Forces murdered more than 1,000 Palestinians, but they have come close to killing the prospect of peace itself. Unless the new US administration takes forceful steps to prevent any further suffering and slaughter of Palestinians, the peace process, the US-Saudi relationship and the stability of the region are at risk.
Turki al Faisal is not alone among the royalty. He notes that the current foreign minister, Prince Saud Al-Faisal, told the UN that if it failed to come to a just settlement in Gaza "we will turn our backs on you," that King Abdullah is also prepared to take peace off the table, and that several Arab nations have suspended all relations with Israel. They are pissed about Gaza, and that applies forcefully to the United States, as well.
America is not innocent in this calamity. Not only has the Bush administration left a sickening legacy in the region – from the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to the humiliation and torture at Abu Ghraib – but it has also, through an arrogant attitude about the butchery in Gaza, contributed to the slaughter of innocents. If the US wants to continue playing a leadership role in the Middle East and keep its strategic alliances intact – especially its "special relationship" with Saudi Arabia – it will have to drastically revise its policies vis a vis Israel and Palestine.
After conceding that Obama’s rhetoric will "inevitably" condemn Hamas’s rockets, he shoots some salvos across the bow of the Obama administration, including this emphatic list of musts and shoulds:
--Obama should also condemn Israeli atrocities AND support a UN resolution to that effect, including settlement building, the blockade of Gaza, targeted killings, and arbitrary arrests of Palestinians.
--declare America’s intention for a WMD-free Middle East, having a security umbrella for cooperators and sanctions for non-cooperators.
--Immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon
--encourage Israeli-Syrian negotiations
--UN resolution guaranteeing Iraqi territorial integrity
--Promote Abdullah’s peace initiative
--Israeli withdrawal to ’67 borders
--find a just solution to refugee problem
--recognize the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital.
In return, there would be an end to hostilities between Israel and all the Arab countries, and Israel would get full diplomatic and normal relations.
All pretty standard, if a bit more outspoken stuff this time around, at least until Prince Turki begins entertaining darker intimations:
Last week, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad of Iran wrote a letter to King Abdullah, explicitly recognising Saudi Arabia as the leader of the Arab and Muslim worlds and calling on him to take a more confrontational role over "this obvious atrocity and killing of your own children" in Gaza. The communiqué is significant because the de facto recognition of the kingdom’s primacy from one of its most ardent foes reveals the extent that the war has united an entire region, both Shia and Sunni. Further, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad’s call for Saudi Arabia to lead a jihad against Israel would, if pursued, create unprecedented chaos and bloodshed in the region.
So far the Kingdom has resisted calls to jihad, he goes on, but their patience is running out. He prays that President Obama "possesses the foresight, fairness, and resolve to rein in the murderous Israeli regime and open a new chapter in this most intractable of conflicts."
I think what he means is that the US is the key Israeli ally holding significant sway in Tel Aviv, and can no longer afford its extravagant failures, and will not be tolerated as a strutting peacock of fail.
If I were Obama trying re-float this flat-ass broken, Blanche Du Bois economy on the kindness of strangers, I'd sit up and take notice.