Michael O'Hanlon, a defense-policy scholar at the Brookings Institution, watched Bush's comments about Iraq live on television and said he "seemed to merge different concepts in his head in a random and somewhat illogical way."
"I didn't get a sense he had a real clear grasp in his own mind of exactly what yesterday's strike was about," O'Hanlon said Saturday.
He cited Bush's explanation made during a news conference with Mexican President Vicente Fox. Bush said, "Saddam Hussein has got to understand that we expect him to conform to the agreement that he signed after Desert Storm. We will enforce the no-fly zone, both south and north."
In the 1991 agreement that ended the Gulf War, Hussein pledged not to develop weapons of mass destruction. The agreement said nothing about no-fly zones. The United States and Britain established the no-fly zones in the early 1990s to protect Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south who had rebelled against Hussein's regime and were brutally repressed. O'Hanlon said, "If Bush wanted to explain the importance of maintaining the no-fly zone, he could have reminded people what Saddam had done to his own civilians using air power," rather than referring to the Gulf War cease-fire agreement. ...
For many who deal with him, Bush's linguistic gymnastics -- long used as ammunition by those trying to challenge his competence -- have become an irrelevant and even endearing tic. Asked recently when he plans to travel to Africa, the second largest continent in terms of area, Bush replied: "One country at a time -- going to Mexico first."
[In any event, it is difficult to discern any "logic" at all (i.e., in a strategic sense; Bush Jr.'s personal desire to avenge Bush Sr. is obvious) in the decision to step up air attacks against Hussein. Clearly, the Mideast is growing very unstable. And just as clearly, the reason for this is Israel's unprecedentedly punitive treatment of the Palestinians -- treatment that is causing Hussein's stock to rise among Arabs in the region, if only by default, since he's viewed as the only national leader there really willing to take on the U.S. It is hard to see how the U.S. will alleviate tensions in the area and discredit Hussein: (a) by threatening no action against Israel because of its conduct toward the Palestinians, not even a simple cutback in aid, and (b) making Hussein an even more sympathetic figure to Arabs by capriciously violating Iraqi sovereignty through this escalation of bombing.]
Carl
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