Maureen Dowd asks the $64,000 Question in today's NYT:
Does Mr. Bush ever wonder if the neocons duped him and hijacked his foreign policy? Some Middle East experts think some of the neocons painted a rosy picture for the president of Arab states blossoming with democracy when they really knew this could not be accomplished so easily; they may have cynically suspected that it was far more likely that the Middle East would fall into chaos and end up back in its pre-Ottoman Empire state, Balkanized into a tapestry of rival fiefs -- based on tribal and ethnic identities, with no central government -- so busy fighting each other that they would be no threat to us, or Israel.
As I wrote yesterday, this is what you get when an unprepared president leans too heavily on strong-willed experts and advisers -- endless palace intrigue and feckless, God-awful governance.
Posted by Jack O'Toole on September 7, 2003 04:24 AMI've been thinking all along: that this is the real reason we haven't gone into Afghanistan with bulldozers and billions. As long as they're fighting each other, what do we care? It's when things get quiet that the US thinks it has a problem.
The oil is too valuable, tho, to keep in the ground in Iraq. And Bush'll be damned if he's going to share it with anyone wearing blue helmets. He doesn't need policy advisors to figure that one out.
Posted by: vachon on September 8, 2003 01:11 PM