Crisis cocktail

By Creature

As the world crumbles around them, they still don't get it.

From deteriorating security in Afghanistan and Somalia to mayhem in the Middle East, confrontation with Iran and eroding relations with Russia, the White House suddenly sees crisis in every direction.

Throw in a bit of North Korea and you've got one heck of a crisis cocktail. And how does the Bush administration react to a world gone wild? With spin, of course.

Hadley agreed that there are "a lot of issues in motion right now" on the international front. "In some sense, it was destined to be, because we have a president that wants to take on the big issues and see if he could solve them on his watch."

The president doesn't want to solve crap on his watch. The only "big issue" this "driven" president wanted to take on was Saddam, and that was more about greed, hubris, and revenge, than it was about solving any kind of issue. Further, Hadley's spin forgets that the president has already coped to the idea that Iraq will be invariably left for others to solve on their watch. But, that's okay, because diplomatically we really are in a better place.

Senior administration officials said the United States is in a much stronger diplomatic position than it has been in the past in dealing with adversaries such as North Korea and Iran.

If the administration truly believes that United States is in a stronger diplomatic position, then they certainly are out of touch. Iraq has weakened whatever hand the United States still has to play, and all the spin in the world will not change the reality of a weakened America on George Bush's watch.

(Cross-posted at State of the Day.)