War carousel keeps spinning

WASHINGTON -- What a strange time this is in our nation's beautiful capital. The tulips have been blooming as though there's no tomorrow, and those sparkling clear sunny days of early spring would fool you into believing that the course of our nation is equally clear. But in fact, we are living in a murky world of delusion and denial.
The old excitement of, say, the days of JFK's Alliance for Progress or Ronald Reagan's end of the Cold War is gone. The best that rational people can do, faced with the interminable muck of Iraq, is try to come up with face-saving half-measures.
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of our finest strategists, says frankly that & quot;the time is ripe to adopt a strategy for terminating the U.S. military presence in the country. & quot; He outlines getting the Iraqi leaders to publicly ask the United States to leave, setting a date, and then calling for a regional conference of Muslim states and a broader donors' conference.
& quot;The U.S. needs to recognize that its intervention in Iraq is becoming part of a wider, dangerous collision between America and the Muslim world -- a collision that could prove, if it becomes truly widespread, devastating to America's global positioning, & quot; Brzezinski says.
'Litany of errors'
Another leading military analyst, Anthony Cordesman, goes further, saying: & quot;The U.S. must both admit its mistakes and learn from ... a litany of errors ... if it is to succeed in the future. & quot;
But the Americans who are financing this absurd and destructive war do not realize that the war's propagators do not share these doubts. From George W. to Dick to Rummie, all believe that they are winning this war.
April, the most lethal month for U.S. soldiers this year, with at least 67 killed? Only a blip in their & quot;long war & quot; against terrorism across the world! More than 100,000 Iraq families fleeing religiously and ethnically mixed areas to settle in a country divided along those lines? The & quot;new Iraqi government & quot; will take care of it!
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld displayed a kind of delusionary sense of humor when, in Baghdad recently, he talked about Iraqi & quot;sovereignty, & quot; about how the & quot;sovereign & quot; Iraqis must step up to the plate and take charge.
Why does it seem strange to me that we invade a country, destroy the institutions it has, fail to establish new ones, tear the country apart, inspire an insurgency against our occupation, and then say: & quot;Let them deal with it & quot;?
While by now most rational Americans understand that this war was George, Dick and Don's midlife testosterone adventure, they themselves are still in the middle of the love affair. Three recently released Pentagon documents foretell a widely expanded war across the globe, & quot;fighting terrorism & quot; with Special Operations troops -- bringing us closer to relying on irregular troops and units not as carefully supervised by Congress.
Moreover, while responsible men like Brzezinski and Cordesman are searching for rational ways to get us out of Iraq, the White House and the neocons who still lurk in the shadows of the Oval Office and the Pentagon have not given up on new male-order adventures.
The brilliant head of one Washington think tank, in a recent private letter to his board members and other constituents, wrung his hands about & quot;the talk in Washington about potential military strikes against Iran. & quot;
& quot;The neocons argue that a bold and sustained air attack over a number of days will thoroughly discredit the new government & quot; and & quot;will cause a popular uprising against the regime, & quot; he went on.
Human Nature 101
Apparently none of these men and women (and remember, they are the ones who gave us the Iraq war) has taken Human Nature 101. When people are attacked, they rally in favor of their regime, not against it.
And war-planners tsk-tsk away the reliable reports and intelligence indicating that, during the past six months, Iran has moved intelligence and irregular military elements into Iraq, surely to ignite Shia actions against American troops should the U.S. act against Iran.
Don't mistake the camouflaging of intentions implicit in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's courtly gestures, or the hiring of the charming Tony Snow as the new White House press secretary, for real changes. W, Dick and Don and their history-challenged neocon pals are marching us right on -- deeper and deeper into the quicksands of the Middle East.
Universal Press Syndicate