The Bush Administration appears to be spinning in a raft floating down turbulent white water with no leader at the helm. Since the November election failures of the Republican party the Republican leadership seems to be coming undone before our ideas.
Many of the myths and jokes about Cheney and Rumsfeld secretly leading the country as CEO and COO to Bush's Chairman role seemed like a nice description or analogy, but even the most cynical hope that it wasn't true. Rumsfeld is now departed and it doesn't appear that either Bush or Cheney are leading.
After several weeks of taking advice from a bipartisan team the Bush team is publicly allowing for the possibility of opening up talks to Iran and Syria and at the same time rejecting the calls of all parties to reduce the troop presence and instead providing a plan to send more troops to Iraq.
In finance this is referred to as putting good money in after bad. Sending more troops should have been the solution years ago. There is a plan developing to place Syria in a position of leadership in the Middle East. The straw that is flashing just out of reach of US leadership is a straw where Syria can magically re-unite Iraq, heal Lebanon and all for the price of the Golan Heights, economic assistance, and a new friend in the US.
Basically, all the plans sound ludicrous. Befriending Syria for no reason and offering an ally as a sacrifice at their alter will not win the US any additional support, respect and definitely not any peace in the world. Sending more troops with no plan to do anything, with no strategic nor tactical objectives is basically just a base relocation.
Troops need a mission. They are a highly adaptable resource that has been poorly utilized. Its like a person on a beach that finds a bottle with a genie in it.
Ask the right question and your wishes will come true. Ask the question poorly, deploy your resource in the wrong direction and you will not be able to anticipate what you will receive. That's exactly what we received in Iraq, a genie delivered our wish, but we wished without wisdom.
We have moved past wishing and on into fishing. Now we are using Israel as bait and sending our troops to Iraq like shark hunters - I won't even say it. Its disgraceful.
This administration may not be prepared to do the job. The may not have leadership qualities, but they need to pull their heads out of their rhetoric and start getting something done. They need to get to work and come up with some answers.
In the military we say, lead, follow or get the hell out of the way. This team has shown that they can't lead. Their is no provision for them to follow and there is no way other than resignation or impeachment that they can get the hell out of the way.
Its amazing how far they have self destructed in 30 days since the election. If this were a fiction novel or movie it would be painful but entertaining to watch how far they will go by 1/7/07, but its reality and we are not casual bystanders. Things need to start happening and they need to start soon.
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