{"id":35,"date":"2002-09-22T14:45:11","date_gmt":"2002-09-22T14:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=35"},"modified":"2002-09-22T14:45:11","modified_gmt":"2002-09-22T14:45:11","slug":"method-to-his-madness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/?p=35","title":{"rendered":"Method to His Madness?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bush has a wild hair up his ass. Everywhere you turn you can hear
\nsomeone on his staff banging on the drums about a war
\nwith Iraq. It’s inevitable. It’s required.
\nBush is a crazy man, or so it may
\nseem<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Howard Finneman, who wrote the article linked above has a
\ntheory<\/a>,
\nwhich is interesting if nothing else. He makes the case that
\nthe efforts of the Bush administration to
\nbegin military action in Iraq are not the acts of a desperate
\nwarmonger and not the acts of a country happy to start a war.
\nAll the chain rattling may be part truth and part political ploy.<\/p>\n

Mr. Finneman makes a strong, if not interesting case. Junior Bush
\nhas of history of reckless abandon, followed by tough but reasonable
\nbargaining. It happened in his term as governor and it happened
\nin Afghanastan. Is it happening again?<\/p>\n

Maybe; maybe not<\/a>.
\nThere’s no denying that the United States is putting Iraq under pressure.
\nThe past several weeks have been filled with growing setiment within the
\nBush camp that Iraq is the next destination of our military.
\nTroops are
\nmoving<\/a>; here we
\ncome<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Then, Bush surprises the world with an excellent
\nspeech<\/a>.
\nWe don’t want to go it alone. We await the actions of the UN. We want
\nthe support of the world. He paints the UN into a corner: enforce your
\nrules or get out of the way.<\/p>\n

For the first time in a while, the United States acted as a leader, not just a participant, in the United Nations. The idea is a pleasing one, and one that
\nshouldn’t seem like past history. Forcing the United Nations to your will is
\nno easy task but Bush layed out the cards: if you don’t lead, we will..<\/p>\n

The world reaction was surprising. All of a sudden Saudi Arabia opens
\nits
\nairfields<\/a>.
\nCountries begin lining up in support of a strong
\nUN resolution backed up by force. Most surprising of all, Iraq submits
\nto weapon inspections. We must appease this madman before
\nwhile he is being reasonable.<\/p>\n

How does Bush react? He reacts with more than a little
\nskepticism<\/a>.
\nLet’s see it. We are not backing down from our plan. Hey Congress,
\nget over
\nhere<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It’s all too soon to see how it will shake out but, for now, the signs are
\nencouraging. All of a sudden – and maybe just for the moment,
\nMr. Hussein
\nunderstands<\/a>
\ncause and effect. Continue to block weapons inpsectors and your next visitors
\nwill be packing military hardware with a letters “US” on them.
\nAs noted by William Saletan in a recent
\narticle<\/a> on the
\nSlate<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nIf you think that an American invasion of Iraq is unwise and that the world
\nwould be better off with unfettered U.N. weapons inspections backed by the
\nserious threat of force, you’re probably right. But if you get what you want,
\nthank Bush.\n<\/div>\n

You don’t have to say what you mean to get what you want. It’s an interesting
\ntheory and one that seems to be supported more and more by facts.
\nIf nothing else, it shows that, unlike his predecessor, it helps to have advisors
\nother than those that spend an inordinate amount of time on their knees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush has a wild hair up his ass. Everywhere you turn you can hear someone on his staff banging on the drums about a war with Iraq. It’s inevitable. It’s required. Bush is a crazy man, or so it may seem. Howard Finneman, who wrote the article linked above has a theory, which is interesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/plan.thewoottons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}