Disaster: Bush Says He’ll Continue Meddling in Middle East After His Presidency
George Bush has informed his inner circle that after he leaves office he plans to invite Middle East leaders to his think tank in Texas, where he will school them in the finer points of democratic governance.
Too bad no one in his inner circle has the cojones to tell him that the rest of the world views his efforts in the region to date as having done more harm than good. His approach — bombing Iraq back to the Stone Age and then installing a weak-as-treacle democracy among the ruins — has supplanted the Vietnam War as the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history.
Meanwhile, here at home, not since the Federalists passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in the Adams administration has a gang in government done more to assault the U.S. Constitution. Through his actions — from wiretapping U.S. citizens to creating “signing statements” that abrogate the bills he signs into law — Bush has demonstrated an aristocrat’s disdain for the institutions of democracy.
The president’s sad bluster about staying involved in Middle East politics would be funny if it weren’t so fraught with danger. Allowing him to meddle in the Middle East could easily result in nuclear-bomb craters dotting the landscape from Tel Aviv to Teheran.
