Sunday, June 04, 2006

Worst Secretary of State Ever

From Sunday's New York Times (filed by AP):
Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned Sunday that oil shipments from the Gulf region would be disrupted if the United States attacked his nation, but his threat was dismissed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice…

…Rice told ''Fox News Sunday'' that ''we shouldn't place too much emphasis on a threat of this kind'' because Iran also has an interest in protecting its major source of revenues.

''What we should place emphasis on is Iran's opportunity to find a way out of this impasse,'' Rice said.

If Condi Rice spent half the time and effort conducting honest to God diplomacy as she spends spinning Bush administration poppycock on Sunday talk shows, we might actually be seeing progress in the Iran negotiations. As it is, she's only creating impasses and making other countries responsible for finding their ways out of them.

Iran's leaders have stated time and time and time again that they will not give up their "inalienable right" under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to develop nuclear energy technologies. So what does Condi offer Iran as the "carrot" for engaging in direct negotiations? That they give up their inalienable right to develop nuclear energy technologies.

If there's a surer way to guarantee that a diplomatic effort fails, I have yet to read or hear about it.

It appears to me that Rice's phony overture is a ruse to push the Iran issue to the UN Security Council, where the U.S. will insist on levying sanctions against Iran.

And guess what's going to happen there. The EU3--England, Germany, and France--may go along with the proposal for the sake of appearances, but do you really think Russia and China will? One might reasonably guess that those two countries are already hacked off at America enough to veto any U.S. sanction proposal, but just wait.

As the issue moves to a Security Council vote, Dick Cheney will go on TV and insult the pants off of those two countries again. And just in case that doesn't do the trick, the Bush administration will insist on locking the Russian and Chinese ambassadors to the UN in a room with John Bolton for twelve hours.

Then Condi will go back on TV to explain that diplomacy, once again, didn't work, just like it didn’t with Iraq, and blame the failure on the UN, the media, the democrats, etc…

Then we'll go boom boom on Iran, Iran will try to go boom boom back, and however that turns out, Condi tell Tim Russert that it was all Iran's fault. Tim, as he so often has, will smile, nod, and ask Condi if she's going to run against Jeb Bush for Commissioner of the National Football League or President of the United States.

#

Condi's old job as National Security Adviser wasn't actually to advise young Mister Bush on foreign policy and security strategy. Young Mister Bush already had Uncle Dick and Uncle Don and the rest of the neoconservative brain trust around to do that for him.

Condi's job was to tutor Dubya in basic geography. Stand him in front of a map of the world and say things like "the blue parts are water, the green parts are land." Explain to him that no, Iceland isn't really that big, it just looks that way because of how things work out when you draw a sphere on a flat picture, but yeah, Alaska really is bigger than Texas anyway.

Dubya saying, "shoot."

Imagine the scene, Dubya consulting with his new Secretary of State in front of the world map after the Katrina incident.

"No, Mister President, that's Italy."

"That's right, I remember now. Italy's the boot that faces left."

"And Louisiana's the boot that faces right. Clear over on the other side of the map."

"Oh, yeah. The green part up above that blue part that's named after Mexico."

"That's right, sir. You're so smart. You're my best student ever."

Young Mister Bush furrows his brow.

"You know, I just thought me of something. How come that blue part is named after Mexico when so much of it is next to America? Seems like we ought to pass a constitutional amendment to have that name changed on all the maps."

"That's a wonderful idea, Mister President."

"Remind me to take that up with Karl and Uncle Dick next time I see them."

Imagine also, Condi in the oval office, trying to help Bush distinguish between Iran and Iraq.

"They're on opposite sides of that little blue part in the center of the Middle East," she says, "and their names end with a different letter."

Young Mister Bush shrugs, and smirks. "Sounds like nuance to me," he says.

#

Condi Rice is rapidly consolidating America's all time political trifecta of shame: Worst President Ever, Worst Secretary of Defense Ever, Worst Secretary of State Ever.

She'd be completing a "quadrifecta" except that the Worst Vice President Ever crown is still up for grabs between Dick Cheney, Spiro Agnew, and Aaron Burr.

13 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:29 AM

    Speaking of boots, wasn't Miss Condi shopping for fine Italian shoes when Katrina hit? Doubt she wore them on her forced march in Miss. BTW - Monday's oil prices will start at $73 up $1 on Iran jitters.
    CheckSix

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  2. Yes, she was.

    Listing to Oliphant on Imus right now, saying it looks like we're stuck in Iraq for at least two more years at these troop levels.

    Security situation there is worse than ever.

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  3. Anonymous9:29 AM

    I see! We bomb and invade an oil producing country, IraN. They want to protect their country, understandibly, and fight back. And then this goes on for a while.

    And she has the total lack of reality by saying "we should not put to much emphasis on a threat of this kind" when they warned that oil shipments in the Gulf would be disrupted???

    Ummm, didn't they say the same about IraQ?

    I know Americans have short memories...but forget everything within 3 years?? Do they think we forgot? Have we forgotten?

    Is there some odd substance in our/their water? This is an embarrassement

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  4. Last week in the Financial Times there was a political cartoon of an Iranian carrying a drum with the nuclear hazmat symbol on it (presumably Ahmedinejad). Condoleeza was extending an olive branch to this Iranian, but she was doing so while leaning out of the barrel of a big, big gun, which was pointed right at said Iranian.

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  5. That about sums it up for me, Sadiq.

    I'm looking for an up to date list or chart on ME oil exports and US oil imports. Something from 2003 said Iran only accounts for five percent of ME exports, but I'm not sure how accurate that is.

    Meribeth,

    The only difference I see right now between the Iraq run up and this is that now we're not even pretending to have intelligence to back up our WMD assertions.

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  6. Anonymous8:14 AM

    Unfortunately, this war is not really about Christianity and Islam. It's about greed, power, and oil.

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  7. Anonymous8:59 AM

    William you are so right. And it isn't about just oil, it is about sweet crude, or conventional oil.

    Conventional oil will offer you almost 15% more return than other types of oil, such as sulfer (sour) or tar sand oil. It is harder to eliminate the dirt and contaminants in "other" oil and the US does not have but a few refineries that can do this. It is also a lot harder to extract the non-conventional oil. So there you have it, we want the good stuff.

    And also, the world's dependence on oil has made the currencies an oil standard, not gold especially.

    BTW, I heard that the draft bill is back on the table again. Funny we haven't heard about that one. Guess not, when we are worried about homosexuals getting married.

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  8. Anonymous12:05 PM

    From what I have read, the draft bill is apparently buried in subcommittee, where it has been since it was reintroduced in Feb.

    http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:h.r.04752:

    The reason he gave for introducing the bill was to force those who support the war, but give nothing to it or risk nothing by continuing it, to actually give a damn what happens to the people who go fight it. The rationale is that if the sons and daughters of the rich and powerful were just as likely to die for the cause, then the war would likely end sooner rather than later. Because those in power realize this, the bill is unlikely to ever make it out of subcommittee except as a political stunt, as in 2003.

    As for the religious aspect of things, the war certainly wasn't started as a religious crusade, but some on both sides of the conflict are using religious terms to argue about it. Even the president has made some vaguely religious statements about a clash of civilizations or whatnot. Whatever he thinks of it privately, this sentiment plays well with his xenophobic base and keeps them charged up with hate and fear. The same tactic has certainly been used on the other side of the conflict as well. To those of us who care nothing for religion, this strategy is a despicable distraction from the real issue at hand, which appears to be the oil. And not so much having possession of it, as controlling the flow of it.

    If the president wants to allow American companies to invest and profit off of the oil sector of some of these countries, he has two choices. One, he could persuade congress to lift the sanctions preventing US corporate investment, such as the "Iran and Libya sanctions act of 1996". But in his mind, this would be seen as weak and supporting a repressive regime. His other option is to change the regime so that the sanctions are no longer necessary because the regime is no longer repressive. This has been done more than once by America in the past. See Iran, 1953, and Guatemala, 1950's for other examples of American covert military involvement in a coup for corporate interests. One could wait for the leader to die, but that is inefficient. The more expedient method is by making war on the country, as in Iraq. Iraq had standing contracts under Oil for Food with some European countries and Russia and China. When the US invaded, Bush declared those contracts void, and decreed that contracts for rebuilding, and likely for oil investment, would be hinged on how much involvement the country had with the war effort. This way, he could allow US companies access to the market and direct the flow of oil to the countries that were his "true" allies without appearing weak and supportive of a tyrant. The oil companies wrote their own long term contracts on terms that were economically suicidal for the Iraqis, but what choice did they have? The CPA was running things then, and they declared that was how it was going to be. The same logic applies to Iran's oil fields.

    The curious thing is this: the new PM of Iraq is now saying that he will have to deal with resistance in Basra with an "iron fist" to put down the infighting between competing Shia militias. I'd like to see how that will turn out. Did we trade a self-imposed brutal dictator for a popularly elected brutal PM? Kind of flies in the face of the last remaining publicly given reason for invading the country, don't you think? Curious.

    For an interesting third option for dealing with Iran's oil without lifting the sanctions, see this speech given in the late 90's by an exec from a US oil company. Certainly gives one food for thought.

    http://www.worlddialogue.org/pdf/speech8.pdf

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  9. Navywife,

    Thanks for all the wonderful conversation points.

    An "iron fist" in Basra. My, my.

    I'll be doing another piece on Iran later in the week. It seems to me we're once again blowing a chance to make lemonade out of lemons.

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  10. Anonymous4:55 PM

    Biggus Dickus has passed Spiro, who was just a petty crook that got caught. Certainly the money that Dick has made from his Halliburton profits is more than the $100K or so Spiro got in bribes.

    Burr still has the edge, but just barely. His target died.

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  11. The Ann Coulter of Secretaries of State? ;-)

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