Bush's Many Enemies Now Want Blood

Josh Marshall quotes from the Nelson Report:

On the larger topic, law and morality...the ethic of being an American leader, and its betrayal by the Bush Administration...the NY Times today details last year’s CIA Inspector General’s classified report that Bush Administration torture directives carried out by the Agency “might violate some provisions of the International Convention Against Torture...”and remember we warned last night that the CIA pros have it out for the White House, and will not rest until responsibility for torture, as Iraq WMD, is laid at the foot of the political bosses responsible, consequences come what may.

Not coincidentally, Republicans are also ready to take on the oil cartels:

At a politically charged Senate hearing, executives from Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips were grilled about the eye-popping size of recent earnings as consumers struggled with rising petrol prices.

The chairman of the Senate energy committee, Pete Domenici, told them there is a "growing suspicion that oil companies are taking unfair advantage" of crude prices that recently touched $70 a barrel. "The oil companies owe the country an explanation."

As the Republicans argue amongst themselves with increasing shrillness (positioning for the post-Bush regime), this quote got me thinking:

"I think this is a political effort to embarrass the president," said Mr. Hyde. "I don't care how we got into the war, that we will have to argue until doomsday. But one thing I do know, we'd better win. We'd better not lose this war. We'd better not get chased out of the Middle East. And if that happens it will be a disaster."

Indeed. If the USA loses the War In Iraq (and they already have, it just hasn't been publicly acknowledged) it will be a very big thing. This is the world's sole remaining superpower, after all, with a military might never before seen in history. Wiser heads have long understood that it is the THREAT of military might, rather than the ABUSE of it, which presents more genuine opportunities for change.

A defeated USA will return from Iraq loathe to use its forces again without very, very good reason (backed by proven facts, one hopes). Indeed, Bush & Co already cannot muster support from Congress, the Military or the US public, for another invasion of Syria or Iran, much as the neocons would love it.

Defeat in Iraq will probably lead most of the USA back into the old insular American mentality. There is good and bad in that: the public will once again lose their taste for foreign news stories, which will return to a few column inches per paper, but at least all the wannabe Foreign Affairs experts who have sprung up on blogs overnight will subside back into silence.

Of course, the sight of a USA humiliated by Iraqi rebels will provoke much thought outside the USA as well. In the Middle East, even the word "America" will remain stigmatized for another generation or more. Israel will increasingly have to wave its own sticks, or else embrace the international community via the very organizations it currently seeks to undermine. Russia's old militants might see it as an opportunity to re-arm, but I don't think the people of Russia have any stomach for another Cold War style arms race. Beijing will crack a smile. Europe will be relieved, with a few "I told you so" comments doing the diplomatic rounds for a decade or more...

Lots more that could be said on this, I know. Just musing I guess...