Bush Stands Alone  

Some more notes on our insane resource wars, before I get back to clean technology.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an interesting front page today, blaring (accurately) "Bush left stranded in fight for Iraq" and noting Condoleeza Rice's scolding by the US Senate yesterday.

GEORGE BUSH faces increasing isolation after the US President's new high-stakes strategy for Iraq met overwhelming public and political opposition at home and official silence from allies in the Middle East.

More tellingly, the response from Iraq's government has been only grudging endorsement.

In Washington, Congressional Democrats, joined by a surprising number of Republicans, lambasted the Administration's plans to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq.

Harry Reid, the Democratic majority leader in the Senate, declared: "In choosing to escalate the civil war, the President virtually stands alone."

The language was as fierce from the President's own party. "I think this speech given last night by this President represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam - if it's carried out," Chuck Hagel, a Republican Senate foreign relations committee member, told the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. "I will resist it."

A day after announcing the plans, Mr Bush sent Dr Rice, as well as the Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, to Capitol Hill to defend the strategy against a withering barrage of bipartisan criticism.

Voicing concern about Mr Bush's vow to "seek out and destroy" Iranian and Syrian networks of support for insurgents in Iraq, the committee's chairman, Joseph Biden, a Democrat, said Mr Bush lacked congressional authority to extend the war beyond Iraqi borders.

"We all hoped and prayed that the President would present us with a plan that would make things better," Senator Biden said. "Instead, we heard a plan to escalate the war, not only in Iraq, but possibly into Iran and Syria as well. It's a tragic mistake."

... public scepticism and hostility was clear. A Washington Post/ABC poll found that 61 per cent of Americans opposed the plan while just 36 per cent backed it. In another poll, by Associated Press and Ipsos, 70 per cent were against sending more troops.

The Australian Financial Review questioned the wisdom of John Howard's unquestioning support of Bush, saying that escalating an unwinnable war is a big gamble.

An embattled Bush is in the market for a fight, even if he is not sure where this may be taking his country and its allies. The world should pay close attention and not be surprised if it turns out that escalating in Iraq has unintended consequences. Who knows, it may even be part of a broader plan involving military action elsewhere in the region. [BG: splutter]

Prime Minister John Howard, whose support for the Bush escalation should not have surprised anyone, would be advised to begin putting distance between himself and whatever the White House has in mind unles he wants to get locked in to another fiasco.

Glenn Greenwald has some detailed posts on Bush's mad urge to escalate the war in the middle east.

I think there is a tendency to dismiss the possibility of some type of war with Iran because it is so transparently destructive and detached from reality that it seems unfathomable. But if there is one lesson that everyone should have learned over the last six years, it is that there is no action too extreme or detached from reality to be placed off limits to this administration. The President is a True Believer and the moral imperative of his crusade trumps the constraints of reality.

The AEI/Weekly Standard/National Review/Fox News neonconservative warmongers are mocked because of how extremist and deranged their endless war desires are, but the President is, more or less, one of them. He thinks the way they think. The war in Iraq has collapsed and the last election made unmistakably clear that Americans have turned against the war, and the President's response, like their response, was to escalate. How much more proof do we need of how extremist and unconstrained by public opinion and basic reality he is?

For anyone with ongoing doubts, here is how the President thinks, as expressed in an October, 2006 interview with his with his ideological soulmate, Fox's Sean Hannity:

Hannity: Is this a struggle literally between good and evil?

Bush: I think it is.

Hannity: This is what it is? Do you think most people understand that? I mean, when you see the vacillating poll numbers, does it discourage you in that sense?

Bush: Well, first of all, you can't make decisions on polls, Sean. You've got to do what you think is right. The reason I say it's good versus evil is that evil people kill innocent life to achieve political objectives.

...

In response to Joe Biden's warning to Condoleezza Rice that an attack on Iran would "generate a constitutional confrontation in the Senate," Josh Marshall says: "A comment like that doesn't come out of the blue." Maybe, but it is worth underscoring what the administration's views are as to its authority to attack Iran.

Last April, Seymour Hersh wrote an article in The New Yorker warning that the administration "has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensifed planning for a possible major air attack." That article was published just as I was finishing writing How Would a Patriot Act?, and so I added an Epilogue examining the Bush administration's views as to the President's power to commence a war, or order an attack, against Iran.

The Epilogue emphasizes that the radical theories of presidential power adopted by the administration (and applied to general lawbreaking, warrantless eavesdropping, torture, indefinite detentions of U.S. citizens) applied clearly and fully to Iran, i.e., that those theories -- which were and still are the formally adopted positions of the Executive Branch -- absolutely mean that the President has the power to commence a war with Iran, and that not only would he not need Congressional approval to do so, but Congress would lack the power to stop him even if it tried:

As a nation, we can and should engage in vigorous debates over whether a military offensive against Iran is desirable, prudent, disastrous, or just plain crazy. But it is just as crucial that we realize that the Bush administration has embraced theories of executive power which assert that the president has the authority to initiate a military attack on Iran regardless of whether the American people, or their representatives in Congress, approve of such an attack. . . .

As the Iran debate proceeds, it is necessary to remember that the president believes he is the "sole organ" in all such matters, and he has full, limitless and unchecked authority to do whatever he wants.


The rationale and documentation on which I based those conclusions are set forth here, here, and here. The title of the infamous Yoo Memorandum -- the Bible of Onimpotent Presidential Power Theories -- is: The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and the Nations Supporting Them. The Bush administration has not changed one comma in any of its formally adopted positions concerning presidential power, and that Memorandum standing alone, along with multiple other sources (discussed in the linked posts), leave no do doubt as to the administration's views.

...

Kudos to Chris Matthews, who last night tried diligently and repeatedly (though unsuccessfully) to pin down the always evasive Tony Snow on the question of whether the President would seek Congressional authorization before attacking Iran (h/t reader RK):

MATTHEWS: Tony, will the president ask Congress‘ approval before any attack on Iran?

TONY SNOW, WHITE PRESS SECRETARY: You‘re getting way ahead of yourself, Chris. Nobody here is talking about attacks on Iran. . . .

MATTHEWS: Well, he did say we‘re going to disrupt the attacks on our forces, we will interrupt the flow of support from Iran. Does that mean stopping at the Iranian border or going into Iran?

SNOW: Well, again, I think what the president is talking about is the war in Iraq, Chris.

MATTHEWS: So he will seek congressional approval before any action against Iran?

SNOW: You are talking about something we‘re not even discussing...

MATTHEWS: Well, you are, Tony, because—look at this.

I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.”

Isn‘t that about Iran?

SNOW: It‘s about—yes, it is, in part. And what it is, is it‘s saying, “Look, we are going to make sure that anybody who tries to take aggressive action. But when Bill Clinton sent a carrier task force into the South China Sea after the North Koreans fired a missile over Japan, that was not as a prelude to war against North Korea. You know how it works. . . .

MATTHEWS: My concern is we‘re going to see a ginning-up situation whereby we follow in hot pursuit any efforts by the Iranians to interfere with Iraq. We take a couple shots at them, they react. Then we bomb the hell out of them and hit their nuclear installations without any action by Congress. That‘s the scenario I fear, an extra-constitutional war is what I‘m worried about.

SNOW: Well, you‘ve been watching too, too many old movies featuring your old friend Slim Pickens is what you‘re doing now, come on.

MATTHEWS: No, I‘ve been watching the war in Iraq is what I‘ve been watching. As long as you say to me before we leave tonight that the president has to get approval from Congress before making war on Iran.

SNOW: Let me put it this way. The president understands you‘ve got to have public support for whatever you do. The reason we‘re talking to the American public about the high stakes in Iraq and why it is absolutely vital to succeed is you‘ve got to have public support. And the president certainly, whenever he has taken major actions, he has gone before Congress.

Tim at Balloon Juice ponders the last time an army in Iraq tried to surge over the border and grab Iran's oil fields.

Was just ruminating about a history of the Iran-Iraq war that I perused the other day. Convinced that the student revolution left Iran’s oil fields undefended, Saddam Hussein tried and failed to make a quick grab for the border provinces. After some skirmishing Hussein essentially pulled back and hoped that the Mullahs would let bygones be bygones. They didn’t. Iran sent everything it had after Iraq, with or without equipment and training, over and over again. They used waves of teenagers to clear minefields, losing the good part of a generation in the process. The Iranians would have taken a chunk out of Iraq if Hussein had not brought nerve gas weapons to bear. The apparent superiority of Iraq’s forces, the violence of its attacks and the practically genocidal loss of civilian volunteers didn’t seem to discourage them at all.

Anyhow, just a random thought on a Thursday afternoon. I’m sure that Iran will prove perfectly pliable to American intimidation, especially if we throw in a bombing raid or two. If that doesn’t work, well, bygones.

Tony Blair has made a speech proclaiming the need to wage wars, manufacture consent for them and to denounce those who speak up against them as enemy propagandists. Its a strange day when the Tories appear to be far to the left of Labour...

Prime Minister Tony Blair, defending his interventionist policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, said Britain should carry on influencing world affairs through fighting wars as well as peacekeeping. Blair said while public opinion might be divided, it was up to politicians to figure out how to gain the consent of voters to do both. ...

Blair's support for the US-led invasion of Iraq has proven deeply unpopular at home where concern is also mounting about growing British casualties in Afghanistan. The prime minister has said he will step down this year in part because of public anger over his unswerving support for President George W Bush's military intervention in Iraq. He reiterated that he believed it was "ludicrous" to suggest ousting Saddam Hussein or the Taliban had inflamed Muslim opinion.

Blair also said rolling 24-hour media cover broadcasting instant, often gruesome images also complicated the task politicians faced persuading voters the battle was worth fighting. "Public opinion will be divided, feel the cost is too great, the campaign too long ... they will be constantly bombarded by the propaganda of the enemy, often quite sympathetically treated by their own media, to the effect that it's really all 'our', that is, the West's fault," Blair said.

In the US, the Bush administration is going after lawyers as well as the media.

MOST AMERICANS understand that legal representation for the accused is one of the core principles of the American way. Not, it seems, Cully Stimson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs. In a repellent interview yesterday with Federal News Radio, Mr. Stimson brought up, unprompted, the number of major U.S. law firms that have helped represent detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

"Actually you know I think the news story that you're really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, 'Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there,' and you know what, it's shocking," he said.

Mr. Stimson proceeded to reel off the names of these firms, adding, "I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out."

Asked who was paying the firms, Mr. Stimson hinted of dark doings. "It's not clear, is it?" he said. "Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they're doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving monies from who knows where, and I'd be curious to have them explain that."

The SMH also has an article on Somalia - the "horn of anarchy".

For the first time since its disastrous "Black Hawk down" intervention in 1993, the US is shooting to kill in Somalia. Jeffrey Gettleman reports from a land where the clan is king.

Every Friday morning in Kismayo, a seaside town on the Horn of Africa, the future of Somalia plays football on a bone-littered beach. Boys dribble around animal carcasses and oil drums that have been dumped near the shore. Ships covered with rust lean into the sand. The palms sway, the seagulls squawk and a few girls in veils hang back, watching the action. "This is all we know," says Mahmoud Abu Gur, 19, pointing to a dozen haphazard football games. "This."

The road ahead for Somalia begins in places like Kismayo: dusty, chaotic, forlorn wrecks of cities where the list of dire needs such as food, water, shelter, a fire department, law, order - and hope - is so overwhelming people just shake their heads and smile when asked where they would begin.

In just two weeks, the Somali political world has been turned upside down, bringing ambitious governance and reconstruction issues into focus for the first time in 16 years. The Islamist forces that ruled much of the country for the past six months are out. The transitional federal government, which had been considered totally feckless by those both at home and abroad, is in.

The surprising reversal is because of thousands of Ethiopian troops still in Somalia who routed the Islamists after Ethiopian officials declared the growing movement a regional threat.

Kismayo is an old Arab port town of 700,000 people, Somalia's third most populous city, after Mogadishu, the capital, and Hargeisa, in the north.

But town elders in all three places are struggling with the same questions: how to provide security; what to do with the remaining Islamists; how to determine the proper role for religion, which is an important theme in Somali society; and how to unify rival clans, rebuild infrastructure and live with the Ethiopians. Many Somalis say they are starting at less than zero. "After nearly two decades of anarchy, people just don't want to be ruled," says Abdi Artan Adan, a retired diplomat in Kismayo.

Ever since Somalia's central government collapsed in 1991, the country has been notorious for the staggering levels of firepower on the streets.

One of the great ironies in world news at the moment is the declining oil price, driven by low heating fuel demand in the US courtesy of their global warming induced non-winter - how many people would have predicted that feedback loop ? Resource Investor thinks oil prices will keep heading down due to OPEC supply cuts and a slowdown in the US economy.

Of course, if you think the nutbags in the Bush administration go ahead and attack Iran regardless of opposition from everyone else, this could be a prime buying opportunity...

Without some kind of major catastrophe springing itself upon us we are heading lower, with the possibility of a sharp return to the upside. In other words, the price is going to go down, as the market herd are well and truly in the mood to short the price.

Firstly U.S. data, on which the market places so much importance, has turned very bearish in recent weeks. The data showed big increases in distillates and gasoline. Distillates are 12 million barrels, over 9%, up on the same period year on year. Heating oil is 5.7 million barrels, over 10%, up on the same period last year. Crude stocks fell by 5 million barrels last week, to a stockpile of 314 million barrels. This is 6.9 million barrels, 2%, below the same time last year but the market has brushed off the implications.

Basically demand in the U.S. is healthy, but generally flat. This could mean the start of the long awaited economic downturn, the second part of the ‘double dip’ that analysts and the public alike have been speculating about for some time. If so this puts further downward pressure on the price of a barrel of crude. Even a historically weak dollar has not supported the price.

OPEC cuts have been ignored by the market for a couple of reasons. Firstly OPEC are rather opaque when it comes to sticking to their own quotas, secondly the barrels they have cut are the barrels no one was buying anyway. It appears that two of the most aggressive nations, in terms of cutting output, Iran and Venezuela, are two of the worst offenders when it comes to quota breaking.

However the lead has been taken by the mild winters in Europe and America. Swimmers have been out in New York in January, daffodils are blooming in London and sunbathers are sunning themselves in France and Spain. The unseasonable weather, we should be used to it by now, has thrown off the certainties that normally shroud the winter months.

It looks very likely that the market will now test $50 in the near future. It will need some real resolute action by OPEC to boost the price. Or some kind of significant geo-political action.

We may note now that however many hostages are taken by the militant groups, really local men, in the Niger Delta, it has no effect on the price in London or New York. Hostage taking, even fairly sophisticated bombs – a new development for the Delta groups – has come a long way second to the clement weather in terms of market action.

What $50 oil will do to the majors is only just starting to unfold. We can only wonder to what effect this weighed on the mind of BP CEO Lord Browne, who has decided to step down on July 31 this year instead of December 31, 2008.

With the possibility of far lower profits running headlong into far higher industry costs, Browne may well have decided to get out while the profits are still at record highs.