Okay, so President Bush has vetoed the war spending-withdrawal bill. The Democrats, lacking veto-proof majorities, are on the defensive. The president has pretty much cajoled Congress into going along with his latest executive dispensations — giving Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki six more months to find his mojo and General Petraeus six more months to turn things around. At which time the president will come up with another round of dispensations to justify more time to turn things around. Bloody ridiculous, isn’t it?
But what could happen in the meantime to upset the president’s extremely shaky applecart?
* A significant loss of American lives – either in a single incident, say in the oft-mortared Green Zone, or a series of incidents — that clearly put the lie to the fiction that the surge is working.
* Al-Maliki, who is so vile and ineffectual that he actually makes Bush look good on some days, does something so outrageous that it clearly puts the lie to the fiction that Iraqis can reconcile and march arm in arm into the future.
* A full-scale Republican revolt because of some or all the above and/or other developments that spell sure electoral doom for the beleaguered party in 2008.
* A successful Democratic-led legislative initiative because of some or all of the above and/or other developments that finally forces the president’s hand.
One factor that will not upset the applecart is the continued slaughter of Iraqi civilians.
This is because of two interrelated reasons: The president and most Americans couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Iraqis per se, who always have been a vague abstraction at best, although the slaughter does continually reinforce the view that chaos reigns four years after the president declared “Mission Accomplished.” In any event, the slaughter will continue whether U.S. troops stay or leave – and probably will get worse no matter when they leave.
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