Incurious George

Reuters reports that Chimpasaurus Tex is on the move. Going on a big aeroplane, flying to the Middle East on a mission to make peace. Because he has so much credibility in the region, in that department.

President George W. Bush headed to the Middle East on Tuesday, aiming to nurture Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts in the face of deep skepticism while trying to rally Arab opposition to Iran.

You know, George Bush trying to promote Middle East peace is a lot like taking a shit on the floor down at Sears in an effort to sell perfume. After seven years of setting stuff on fire, L'il Georgie is going to make his first visit to Israel and Palestine and try to convince a few people to consider the value of shoring up his legacy. And while he's busy being a peace maker he's going to shoot his ignorant mouth off and taunt Iran. Because that will help.

Of course the Iranians are a snotty bunch as underscored by their confrontation in the Strait of Hormuz the other day. No doubt timed to nettle the decider, a man not exactly known for clear thinking, tact or churning up a thought before he speaks.

The whole thing looks like it was knitted together on a whim, let's go peace talking for a week, for the sake of the future historians. The same historians that the pudding headed president believes will vindicate his utterly failed tenure in the oval office.

Many analysts say that if Israelis and Palestinians are to resolve differences, it will require direct, sustained presidential engagement.

But Bush has made clear he has no intention of adopting what his administration once derided as Clinton's "shoot the moon" approach to Middle East peacemaking.

Bush, who last visited Israel as Texas governor, has been vague about his trip's objectives and has no plans even to hold a three-way meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Because lawd knows, after seven years of pissing into the wind, Bush isn't going to learn a new trick, like diplomacy. It's a damn good thing that there is a lot of fuss in the media with really important stories to distract from George's bumbling walk about. Google news was ready to cough up over a thousand stories about the saga of one Ms. Spears, an intellectual equal for the president. I wonder what the budget for this excursion is going to be, I wonder how many children could have received health care for that kind of money.

"Iran was a threat, Iran is a threat and Iran will continue to be a threat if they are allowed to learn how to enrich uranium," Bush said.

Bush's task in rallying opposition to Iran is made harder by a U.S. intelligence report that Iran stopped its nuclear arms program in 2003, contradicting his earlier assertions Tehran was actively pursuing a bomb.

Um, forgive me, being an artsie and all but would it not be fair to assume that pretty much any decent physicist could explain the rudiments of enriching uranium? I'd go with the assumption that Iranian scientists know how to enrich uranium, and I'll follow that by saying big deal. Iran shut down their nuclear arms program almost five years ago. Iran hasn't started any wars, pre-emptive or otherwise, in recent memory. In fact, given the enormous cock up that Bush has executed in the region, Iran is sitting pretty. Why should they engage in conflict when America is busily shuffling the political deck to the advantage of the Iranians?

The secular Sunni regime in Iraq, deposed. Theocratic Shia appear to have the reins of power. Oh happy mullahs! The Taliban enemy in Afghanistan deposed, no weeping in Tehran over that. All of the tub thumping about Iran is a lot of noise, signifying nothing. Bush is going to visit Saudi Arabia on his little voyage to hold hands with his oil buddies. This entire benighted war on terror would find a much more likely home there, where the alleged hijackers came from, where the money likely came from and where the enmity that inspired 9/11 still resides. But that would require honesty from an administration that has no interest in that commodity.

Here's hoping the idiot son can get in and out of the region without causing any more tragedy and damage than he's already authored.