Froomkin provides his usual excellent insight in to the minds of the Bush team today. He examines the fear that Cheney has of "weakness":
Vice President Cheney yesterday offered an unusually revealing glimpse of his worldview -- one in which a withdrawal from Iraq may have less to do with Iraq, and more to do with the message it would send to the world about the limits of American power.Cheney's fears of the United States looking weak have already been realized -- and it's because of the failed policies of the Bush/Cheney administration. The Iraq debacle and the actions of the past few weeks have reinforced that perception to the rest of the world.
In Cheney's view, withdrawal from Iraq would first and foremost make the United States look weak. And that, in turn, would have cataclysmic domino-style effects across the globe: Afghanistan could fall, and so could Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The Iranians could get nukes. And the United States itself would become dramatically more vulnerable to attack, not to mention lose its ability to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests.
What does it say when the leaders of the world's "lone superpower" (as Dan Bartlett described us repeatedly the other day on the Today Show) practically declared a national holiday because we killed one bad-ass terrorist? Al-zawqari was an extremely dangerous and bad man. He got what he deserved. But by making it seem like it took the entire concentration of the world's "lone superpower" to take out one terror leader in a country we occupy, well, frankly, that made us look weak -- and terrorists like Al-zarqawi strong. All this is set against the backdrop of a country that cannot locate the one terror leader, Osama Bin Laden, who killed Americans on American soil.
Also, Bush's secret photo op trip to was considered a great p.r. move here. Of course, it was viewed solely through a political lens. What message did it send to the rest of the world that the President of the U.S. had to sneak in to a country he claimed to have vanquished three years ago? If Iraq was the success Bush claimed it would be, there would have been a parade from the airport to downtown Baghdad. Instead, the President was covered with body armor -- and he didn't even tell his good friend, the Iraqi Prime Minister, that he was coming. That's supposed to show strength to the world?
The Bush team is obsessed with not making America look weak. Their failures in Iraq have produced just that result.
