Despite all the negative aspects accompanying our rule, there are a lot of potential positives. The election is only four months away, and a lot can happen in the interim. There just might be a terrorist attack -- who knows? -- which could drive more voters our way. Or an attack on Iran might have to be launched, and it would be rally-'round-the-flag time. Or we can defang the Iraq War as an issue by withdrawing tens of thousands of U.S. troops before the November election -- you know, make it seem like the beginning of the end -- and then put them back into Iraq after the election.
I've been thinking a lot about my legacy. I used to believe that maybe I could finesse a way of looking good on the global warming issue, but, even if I had wanted to do something positive in the past eight years, that train long ago left the station. (Damn Al Gore!) No, it seems clear to me that the only hope I've got for a positive legacy is if I can pull a rabbit out of the hat in the Greater Middle East: Maybe get something positive out of Iran. Maybe work a deal with Syria. Maybe something we can point to as "peace" between the Israelis and Palestinians or some milestone that we can call a "victory" in Iraq and start (or at least appear to be starting) to pull our forces out of there.
We might even be able to massage Maliki's endorsement of Obama's 16-month timetable so that it redounds to our favor: We could have McCain say something like: "The surge, which I was for and Obama was against, has worked so well that our victory allows us to speed up bringing the boys home" -- that sort of thing. Of course, the goal here is not really to bring the troops home but to arrange for us to stay there in some military strength for decades, using Iraq as our base of operations for changing the geopolitical map of the Greater Middle East. But, as I say, we can rework the arrangement after the November election.
I know all this is a gamble, though. In the short term we're probably not going to get more pro-American, capitalist democracies in the region. But maybe history will prove my policies correct in the long term and, like Truman, I'll look better from a few decades out. At this stage, I'll take whatever I can get.
Besides, there's an upside to all the chaos and catastrophe we're leaving in our wake for the next president, both domestically and abroad: Even if he wants to make radical changes in direction, we will have made sure he's hogtied to current policies and thus might well fail, making it easier for a GOP comeback in 2010 and 2012.
Still, I figure if Dick and I can get out of Washington in January without being impeached, indicted, or further humiliated, I'll count that as a big success and, at the very least, a good start on my legacy.#
Bernard Weiner, a poet, playwright and Ph.D. in government & international relations, has peeked into a good many politicians' diaries ( www.crisispapers.org/weinerpubs.htm#diaries ); he has taught at various universities in California and Washington, worked as a writer/editor with the San Francisco Chronicle for two decades, and currently serves as co-editor of The Crisis Papers (www.crisispapers.org). To comment: crisispapers@hotmail.com .
First published by The Crisis Papers and Democratic Underground 7/22/08. www.crisispapers.org/essays8w/LameDems.htm
Copyright 2008 by Bernard Weiner
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