Bush’s good deed
Pat Lang explores some of the ramifications of Bush’s last –it might seem his only– good deed: rejection of an Israeli request for overflight permission and perhaps military assistance in bombing Iran’s nuclear reactor. There’s been very little about this in the mainstream press– though it’s the kind of major incident that history often turns on. Lang’s key point: we have a defense treaty with Iraq which allows and obligates us to defend Iraqi airspace. Would we defend it against Israeli overflights?
That’s just great. Bush allows Iran to push ahead with the bomb. And only in the bizzarro world of the TAC does this qualify has a great thing.
One wonders if indeed the story is accurate whether it wasn’t just a last chance attempt by Israel to bluff Bush into participating in such an attack.
After all unless Israel uses nukes it doesn’t seem to have the sustained bombing capacity to really set back Iran’s program all that far back towards zero. So Bush is on the way out, and if Obama wins it seemed fairly clear he was more of a jaw jaw guy than a bomb bomb guy, and then there was that NIE saying Iran no longer even *had* a nuke weapons program that Obama might cite. So why not see if Bush would once more ignore his own Intell people and go along and do Israel one last favor? True, McCain seemed an even more bombastic guy than Bush, but even if Bush said no and McCain won all that would mean was that they’d just yet another bite at the apple. So why not take the one decent-chance bite they surely had with Bush if they might not get any good bite chance at all with Obama?
Certainly after the election but before Bush was off the throne the Israelis indulged in some similar logic by getting all kinds of things from him at the last minute essentially. A deal for some 30 billion more in arms or etc. over the next five years if I recall right, and a deal to help stop weapons coming into Gaza and God knows what all else that Olmert himself came and got Bush’s signature on. (Maybe even using the fact that Bush had turned their overflight request down and saying “well you didn’t give us *that* so please now give us at least *this*….)
In any event I’d agree with Pearlman that it’s a bit bizarre, but only in the opposite sense of it being strange that for the first time ever Bush perceived that there could be a difference between the interests of the U.S. and those of Israel.
Makes me wonder just exactly what happened in the last half of 2008 or so with Bush. Seems like at some indefinite point there the pixie dust from Cheney and the neo-cons just started wearing off and he started talking and acting rather differently. Talked about having an American join the Euros talking directly to Iran and maybe even opening an interest section in Teheran, seemed to drop the weekly sky-is-falling talk about the threat from Iran and all kinds of other little things. And then too I think I read too some story vaguely hinting that Bush had kind of concluded that Cheney and his gang had not served him all that well. He also seemed to rather conspicuously not care about the amazingly open, obvious and sustained displeasure Cheney and the neo-cons (including esp. Elliot Abrams from NSC) exhibited about backing Chris Hill’s diplo work with N. Korea too if that’s to be recalled. So it doesn’t seem that Bush’s apparent change was soley due to that Iran-specific NIE.
Something happened I think. And I think I might have even seen some evidence of it in a number of Bush’s valedictory-type statements. There was almost a “gee I wish I had some big do-overs” quality to a number of same, and even his obligatory defense’s changed so that he wasn’t any longer so so proud of invading Iraq because it protected the U.S., but instead only a little more restrained proud because it was bringing voting to Iraq and from there hopefully further into the ME.
I dunno but it seems interesting. Wonder how often you’re going to see Bush socializing with good old Dick at the ranch? ‘Course that might be because it would be too scary to be inviting Dick to any outdoor venue where he might bring his shotgun, but ….
Cheers,
Lang and his commenters raise some interesting scenarios. I think one mentioned Turkey bombing the PKK inside Iraq. Are we sure we haven’t
already failed to defend Iraqi air space? Considering what happen during the Liberty incident, would the US Air Force be allowed to engage the errrh, enemy? Enemies, allies, it’s all the same in the Middle East.
Our next Bush President should consider invading Tahiti or Bermuda. You know, someplace nice.
Mr Pearlman, have you ever consdered that there may be better Mid-East strategies than perpetual war and bombing Muslims from a great height ? Just asking…
There also might be better strategies than suicide bombers and quassam rockets. Not to mention genocidal threats by the Iranians. Just a thought.