The Zong

As the State of the Union approaches, it seems likely that George W. Bush will finally dust off his plan to send America to oil rehab. Evidently, corn ethanol is still the best way out of this mess, and America will sit in rapt attention, I’m sure, as the President finds some way to deflect criticism for his new military “augmentation” by not addressing the pile of dead Iraqi university students in the foyer.

It was an eventful, if not completely tragic weekend on several fronts, and the Bush Administration finds itself on the literal edge of historical oblivion. From a poll in the Washington Post that finds Bush down to 33% in approval ratings. Again:

With a major confrontation between Congress and the president brewing over Iraq, Americans overwhelmingly oppose Bush’s plan to send an additional 21,500 troops to the conflict. By wide margins, they prefer that congressional Democrats, who now hold majorities in both chambers, rather than the president, take the lead in setting the direction for the country.

Iraq dominates the national agenda, with 48 percent of Americans calling the war the single most important issue they want Bush and the Congress to deal with this year. No other issue rises out of single digits. The poll also found that the public trusts congressional Democrats over Bush to deal with the conflict by a margin of 60 percent to 33 percent.

Well, yeah. I’m skeptical that congressional Democrats are going to do much at this point, either, but more about that in a moment. On a day where no less than 100 people were killed in Baghdad in sectarian violence, one wonders if Bush stands by this little section of the speech he made 12 days ago about the New Way Forward in Iraq.

Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences: In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighborhoods of terrorists and insurgents - but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned. This time, we will have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared. In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighborhoods that are home to those fueling the sectarian violence. This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter these neighborhoods - and Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated. [I bolded this sentence for dramatic affect]

So I’m sure Prime Minister Maliki is having his tolerance tested right now.

Twin bombings Monday tore through stalls of vendors selling second-hand clothes and DVDs in a busy Baghdad market catering to Shiite Muslims during a religious festival. A market also was attacked north of the capital, and police said nearly 100 people died in the renewed campaign blamed on Sunni Muslim insurgents.

The U.S. military also reported the deaths Sunday of two Marines, raising the two-day death toll to 27 in a particularly bloody weekend for American forces in Iraq. A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded four others Monday in northern Iraq, it said.

I truly wonder what Maliki is doing behind the scenes to stem this violence. He seems to be severing ties with Moqtada al-Sadr at the behest of just about everyone, but it seems that the civil war in Iraq has grown far beyond his control. For this reason, I found Bush’s statement that Maliki won’t tolerate sectarian interference to be all hat and no cattle.

And the congressional Democrats? They’re already pissing me off. Someone really has to tell me why, at the weakest point in the Bush presidency, with a convincing majority of their constituents in every imaginable poll saying that they oppose any military escalation in Iraq, the best thing they can come up with is a toothless, non-binding resolution stating that they are opposed to the escalation?

The proposed nonbinding resolution is largely symbolic and would have no effect on money for troops. It states that “it is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the United States military force presence in Iraq.”

Oooooo. That sounds scary.

It would be surprising, but very encouraging, if Ted Kennedy’s bill to limit funding on any further troop deployments without congressional approval was receiving more attention and support, but it seems that the Democrats, who talked a good game before the 2006 election about Iraq, are content to leave the responsibility for our troops to the inside of the Oval Office, where the walls are very thick.

- M.G.