GWB: Double or Nothing

So GWB now admits he, ah, declassified the infamous Plame/Yellowcake material. And of course the usual suspects are rushing to let us all know that it was all technically legal, since the president's a law unto himself and all.

It's quite gratifying to see conservatives jumping in with these legalistic, hair-splitting arguments, quibbling over what the definition of "is" is. We may as well dispute the legality a bit, just to make them keep offering these lame excuses. But it's actually not a completely outrageous idea, so let's assume it's true, purely for the sake of argument. I don't see any realistic prospect of GWB ever being held legally accountable for any of his actions, so arguing over legality is a purely theoretical exercise, anyway.

The R's would like to only talk about the letter of the law, and they'd rather not have a conversation about whether the disclosure was ethical, or politically wise, or good for national security, or the sort of conduct we ought to expect from presidents. Well, George sort of took a stab at that today, arguing that he wanted the country to "see the truth" and so forth, but this argument is unconvincing even by his usual standards.

The problem, of course, is that the Niger yellowcake story had already been discredited at the time George leaked it, so it's not clear what connection there is here with the public "seeing the truth". Maybe Bush still believes it, for all we know. Someone ought to have asked him today. It sure sounds like the usual "conservative relativism" we've come to know and love so much, where truth is just any crazy notion you choose to believe, regardless of the evidence (e.g. creationism), and falsehood is anything you happen to disagree with for whatever reason.

I suppose you could argue that there's no way national security could be harmed by releasing a completely fictional tale about African uranium, since no real secrets are being disclosed. We'll probably hear this argument before long.

Meanwhile, George's next war is starting to take shape. No doubt you've already heard about Seymour Hersh's New Yorker story discussing a possible US attack on Iran in the near future. If the account is accurate at all, the most, ahem, striking thing about it is how similar it is to the Iraq plan. The military particulars are different -- instead of a massive ground invasion, we'd apparently stage a huge air attack against Iran, with no advance warning, a la Pearl Harbor. Aside from that, though, it's like deja vu all over again. The Iranian public, apparently, will greet us as liberators, even if we nuke their country a little here and there. We'll get us a second helping of that tasty regime change, and then we roll the credits. Mission accomplished! The article also asserts we've already got covert operations in place, trying to stoke interethnic tensions in Iran. Fortunately there's absolutely no chance there could be any possible downside to this, certainly not after the regime change happens. Because then the country will be an absolute paradise (well, except for all the radiation). Or at least nobody's thought that far ahead. So long as you avoid ever asking "What happens once we win?", there's no need to have an answer, right? Look at Iraq. Three years on, and we're still making amazing, remarkable progress every single day. Bush and Cheney keep saying so, so you know it must be true. And what's all this crazy "exit strategy" nonsense you hippies keep babbling on about? What part of "mission accomplished" don't you understand?

The current WH spin is that they'd maybe kinda prefer a diplomatic solution. Which, again, is exactly what they said about Iraq. And yes, there were diplomatic efforts. They just weren't good faith diplomatic efforts. They were designed to fail, so that war would appear to be the only remaining option. Some people might argue that threating people with nuclear annihilation is just a really shrewd negotiating tactic. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. There's a fine line between taking a hard line to push negotiations along, and taking a hard line to poison any chance of a deal. You see the latter a lot in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with each side pairing a negotiating track with a parallel track of sucide bombings or forcible land confiscations. And we all know how well that's worked out over the years. I'm convinced Bush & Cheney won't settle for anything other than a war. We'll be told that the Iranian leadership is untrustworthy (the complete opposite of our own leaders), fanatical (again, totally unlike Bush & Cheney), and an imminent threat to world peace (once again... you get the idea).

Hersh quotes sources as saying Bush now sees Iran as his presidential legacy. Which again is what was being said about Iraq a few years ago. That one didn't turn out so well, so we're going to try to change the subject and not talk about it anymore, or think about it, or learn anything from any mistakes that may have been made. Instead we're just going to pick a new country, place another high-stakes bet, and roll the dice again. Double or nothing.

Updated: Read this great rant titled Is Your Entire Country on Crack?.