The Deliberater

A little late now...

President Bush said today that he would not be “rushed” into deciding on a new course of action in Iraq, and that United States troops would not leave the country “before the job is done” and Iraq is free and stable.

“We’re not going to give up,” Mr. Bush said at the Pentagon, after discussing the Iraq situation with senior Defense Department officials and military leaders. “The stakes are too high, and the consequences too great.”

In vowing that he would not be hurried, the president said he will announce his plans after “a long deliberation.”

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He also said he was open to new ideas, including some outlined by the Iraq Study Group, which urged a change of course in Iraq.

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The president is to spell out a new strategy for Iraq in early January. For today, he was deliberately vague -- the better, he said, to keep getting valuable, interesting advice.

And while Mr. Bush pledged to work with the new, Democratic-controlled Congress on Iraq, he warned that to leave Iraq precipitously would be to hand that country over to “an enemy that would do us harm,” an enemy whose deadliness was demonstrated on Sept. 11, 2001.

But that will only happen, he said, “if we lose our nerve, if we’re not steadfast in our determination.”

So Bush is happily tooling along, Staying The Course and marking time until he can hand the Iraq mess off to his hapless successor, when the Wise Old Men present their Grand Scheme To, Well, If Not Fix Everything, At Least Try To Minimize The Scope Of The Disaster. Bush doesn't like their grand scheme because it has too much withdrawal and diplomacy, and not enough people getting tortured or blowed up. Bush suddenly realizes that in order to reject their plan, he must actually come up with a plan of his own, which is an idea that never occurred to him even once in the past five years.

And so now we get The Big Stall, as Bush pretends to be giving the matter Serious Thought and Weighing All His Options, just like he did before 9/11, when he milked the Moody Prince Stemlet routine for six months. And I can guarantee you that this decision will be just as half-assed and counterproductive as that one was. After all that faux deliberation, Bush will gravely announce that after much prayer and debate and Hard Work, he has reluctantly Decided™... to keep on doing exactly what he's been doing for the last three years and hope that something different happens, which is so totally not the definition of insanity, OMG I'm so sure. In fact, in a breathtaking Multi Medium Exclusive Scoop, I have managed to obtain a mathematical representation of Bush's plan.

Yes, the ISG plan is mediocre crap with only half an exit. But Bush's plan will be terrible, disastrous crap with no exit at all.