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Meandering Aimlessly, Carrying Broken Sticks

More from the aforementioned Bush chat with conservative columnists. Why does the president keep saying this: “I am trying to show success. It will affect Iran. A free Iraq will affect Iran. It will affect Syria.”

The administration’s been caught in an infinite loop on this question from day one. As everyone can see, it’s essentially impossible to accomplish anything in Iraq insofar as the governments of two adjacent countries are actively trying to undermine what we’re doing. And yet, the president keeps insisting that one of his long-term goals in Iraq is to overthrow the governments of two of Iraq’s neighbors. So — surprise! — they try to undermine his policies. And then the administration turns around and whines about it, before deciding down the road that he should once again re-iterate his goal of toppling the regimes. Meanwhile, he has no actual means at his disposal to accomplish this. It’s moronic; the kind of thing that it would only take about five minutes of thinking to dissuade you from. But he’s been at this for years.

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