BUSH REGIME STILL THINKS IT CAN CONTROL EVENTS IN IRAQ

Is the Bush Regime counterintuitive enough to have figured out that the only way to keep Iraq together as a state is to have some really slimy American political hack advocate splitting it up? According to London's Sunday Times the Iraq Study Group, headed by the much-despised James Baker, plans to recommend carving up Iraq into three highly autonomous regions. "Amid signs that sectarian violence and attacks on coalition forces are spiraling out of control... the Baker commission has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shi’ite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq as the only alternative to what Baker calls 'cutting and running' or 'staying the course.'"

Dropping his trial balloon in London, rather than in the U.S., might me less volatile in the midst of an American election campaign but for Iraqis it's all the same: hopelessly clueless American politicians trying to decide their fate. "Baker, 76, an old Bush family friend who was secretary of state during the first Gulf war in 1991 [and a key operative in stealing the 2000 election for Bush], said last week that he met the president frequently to discuss 'policy and personnel.'"

The Bush Regime's only goal in all this is to come up with a system to ensure the safe delivery of Iraq's oil supplies which might be slightly lower on the priority list for the people struggling with their national, ethnic, religious and constitutional identities. Having someone with Baker's well-known worldwide reputation for partisan deviousness is unlikely to facilitate any Iraqis not being paid by the American occupiers accepting his self-serving proposals.

Since the European media is filled with the reality-based reports so scorned by the Bush Regime it comes as no surprise to the British that the Bush-Blair policies in Iraq have been a colossal failure. Rove and his media operatives are doing all they can to keep that out of the American consciousness until after November 7. "Frustrated by the failure of a recent so-called 'battle of Baghdad' to stem violence in the capital, Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to Iraq, said last week that the unity government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, had only two months left to get a grip. Rumours abound that the much-admired ambassador could depart by Christmas. Khalilzad’s warning was reinforced by John Warner, Republican chairman of the Senate armed services committee, on his return from a visit to Baghdad. 'In two to three months’ time, if this thing hasn't come to fruition and this government (is not) able to function, I think it's a responsibility of our government internally to determine: is there a change of course we should take?' Warner said."


The Bush Regime knows this is inevitable. They just don't want it on TV before the elections since if it starts seeping into the American consciousness it is possible that the Republicans will lose not 30-50 seats now being projected, but as many as 80. And then there's the little elephant sitting in the rocker in the middle of the room that no one wants to mention: "America may have passed the point where it can determine Iraq's future, according to the less than sanguine Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. "The internal politics of Iraq have taken on a momentum of their own." That's impossible; just ask the neocons.