When Georgy Met Donny: A Satirical Tête-à-Tête Between 43 and 45

43: Just wanted to call and say thanks, dude!

45: Oh brother! (45 lets out a big sigh)… Thanks for what, George?

43: Dude, you are makin’ me look like a genius.

45: Really? Everyone thought you were a buffoon and the media might hate me, but the people think I’m the smartest president ever!

43: Dude, dude, duuude… (43 pauses for effect)… get your head outta your dumb ass! You… (45 cuts him off)

45: Excuse me, excuse me, George!  First of all… I’d never do that to my hair… also, I’m, like I said, a smart person.

43: Donald, get a grip?  You’re being a major a*@hole – big time, like my Veep Dick would say… (45 cuts him off)

45: Why, George, why?

43: The Muslim ban – even I thought you were showboating during the primaries!  But seriously, you put Iraq on the list?  Do you even know that our soldiers are still in Iraq? That we are about to retake Mosul?

45: George, don’t get me started on Iraq – WMD… gimme a break!  You took us into Iraq, which I warned about back then many, many times… it’s on tape, check it out?  Anyway, you started a war in Iraq because you wanted to one up your Dad… and in doing so, you f$%&*d up the entire Middle East!

43: Listen dude, I made a big mistake listening to Dick’s cabal and their BS… (43 pauses to let 45 take it in)… but then why are you messin’ with Iran… and what’s “puttin’ Iran on notice” mean anyway?  Is that like Obama’s redline, he-he… (45 cuts him off)

45: Very funny, George!  You’re the guy who put Iran on an “axis of evil” – and let them just remain there… now Obama has given them a sweetheart deal like you did with North Korea, the other member of your axis!  Coddling doesn’t work, George!

43: But you keep telling the world I made a big mistake in Iraq and you want to repeat that in Iran?

45:  I’m not going to war with Iran, OK?  But nothing is off the table… can we change the subject?

43: To what… Australia?  He-he… (45 cuts him off)

45: Not funny, George, do you want me to hang up on you like I did with that Aussie?

43: Dude, just chill, would ya?  Listen to your Veep – that Pence fella, he is a good egg!  He’s done such a great job in Indiana… it’s become just like it was in the good old days… (45 cuts him off)

45: George, I got this.  The American people voted for me in record-breaking numbers because they wanted a winner.  They got a winner, there is going to be so much winning, they’re gonna get tired of winning… (43 cuts him off)

43: Look dude, you didn’t win the popular vote – Hillary did! In fact, you even got less overall votes than Mitt!  So you’re a loser there, Donny boy, he-he!

45:  George, you know I could have won the popular vote but for a massive fraud of 3 to 5 million votes in Hillary’s states?

43: Yeah, sure… I lost the popular vote by only ½ million and even I didn’t make such a horseshit claim, Donny!

45: Whatever, George… that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  Look, I built the most successful business enterprise on the planet and I am gonna do the same for America.  I am going to make America… (43 cuts him off)

43: Save it, dude!  That’s a great slogan but looking at the first two weeks, I’d say you’ve just made America a bit worse! 

45: Whoa! Look who’s talking – remember that “big time” turd you left behind and had Obama clean up?  Now Barack cleaned up your mess all right, but he’s a liberal p@#$y and all he wanted was more government, more regulations, and healthcare for all… that’s no way to grow the economy!  You should know that, George?

43: So dude, you think by imposing tariffs on Mexican goods, mis hermanos mexicanos, you are going to grow the economy?

45: WTF George… (45 lets out loud groan) I don’t understand Mexican, OK?

43: He-he… Look dude, the Wall is a terrible idea and Mexico will never pay for it! 

45: We’ll see about that George?  It’s all because of that lousy NAFTA deal your Dad negotiated way back when… (43 cuts him off)

43: Look dude; keep my Pappy outta this, OK?  How about your badly executed Muslim ban… (45 cuts him off)

45: George, stop calling it that… I am not banning Muslims!

43: Hey, smarty-pants, you’ll learn soon enough that inside the beltway, perception is all that matters.  Perception is reality in Washington D.C.!  If the mainstream media is calling it a ban, it is a ban. Period.  He-he! (long pause) Anywho, Hannity and Fox cannot change that – wake up, smell the fresh hummus waftin’ from the food trucks on Pennsylvania Avenue, and lift the ban.

45: George, it’s not gonna happen… but tell me, not that I care… (45 pauses briefly) what do you think of Neil Gorsuch?

43: Hey, I put Neil on the Appeals Court; he’s a good guy!  But the Dems are pissed because of Mitch’s shabby treatment of Merrick.  You gotta throw ’em a bone, Donny… talk to ’em like I used to.  Chuck and you go a long way; give him a call…

45: Chucky is a monster and a fake!  He can, as Dick said, “Go f%*& himself!”  

43: Big mistake, dude… but like I said you’re makin’ me look good, so whatever. Ciao!

45: Hey, George… let me tell you something – you can never look good, so I’ve got nothing to worry about… (43 hangs up, but 45 continues)  Do me a favor and tell low-energy Jeb, “I did insult my way to the presidency! So there, Loser!  And, I’m going to insult my way, all the freakin’ way, through it as well!”

(45 slams the phone into its cradle for dramatic effect and his staff bursts into applause.)

New START be damned, it’s the beginning of the END… an END to Armageddon!

In its March 27th editorial, “A worthy U.S.-Russia arms control treaty,” the Washington Post calls the new arms control agreement “a solid diplomatic achievement” for President Obama. While it is great to hear that the U.S. and Russia have agreed to slash their nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in half a century, the reality is that the original START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was signed in 1991 towards the end of the Cold War!

Five years earlier, President Reagan had remarked privately to his Secretary of State, George Schultz, “Why wait until the end of the century for a world free of nuclear weapons?” Ten years into the new millennium and we are nowhere close to what President Obama more recently called as “a world without nuclear weapons." Nonetheless, the current accord is being dubbed a “New START” and the White House emphasized that this new treaty does not in any way restrict U.S. missile defense plans.

Meanwhile Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, at a White House Press Briefing on March 26th, made it clear that

“I don’t think anybody expects us to come anywhere close to zero nuclear weapons anytime soon.”

So I have a symbolic gesture that could go a long way to show the world that we are indeed serious about a nuclear weapons-free world. Given that over the past two decades, we have had a successful START I, followed by an un-ratified START II, and now another New START – I would imagine we should be way beyond the starting gate at this point. I therefore humbly suggest to President Obama that the new treaty be called END as in Eliminating the Nuclear Deterrent.

Symbolism plays a big role in the politics of the Middle East and Asia, where we face the biggest threat of nuclear proliferation. In fact, the Post concludes its March 27th editorial by lamenting that “it’s hard to see how new treaties will bring about the disarmament of North Korea or stop Tehran’s centrifuges.” If the U.S. and Russia were to sign an END Treaty, as opposed to a New START Treaty, we might just signal to the world that the end game is actually in sight. Also, in the age of the Internet and social media that demands remarkable content with catchy headlines, an “END to Armageddon” makes for one memorable tweet! But seriously, the END treaty will likely gain more popular acceptance because as the old adage goes “well begun is half done.” So, Mr. President, please let’s make it the END.

Mossad on the Move

There has been much brouhaha in the media of late about an Israel vs. United States sparring contest. Following Vice President Biden’s recent contentious visit to Israel, Thomas L. Friedman of the New York Times went apoplectic in his March 14th column, “Driving Drunk in Jerusalem.” He accused Israel of making it “look like America’s most dependent ally can push” us around. Then Robert Kagan got into the act with a contrarian viewpoint that not only empathized with Israel but also was more scathing in his judgment of President Obama’s overall foreign policy. In his March 17th column in the Washington Post, “Allies everywhere feeling snubbed by President Obama,” Mr. Kagan suggested that “Israelis shouldn't feel that they have been singled out.”

On the same day, John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, spouted his usual hawkish tone in the Wall Street Journal. In “Israel and The Crisis With Obama,” Mr. Bolton pointed out that “Israel has sought to accommodate Mr. Obama on two critical issues: negotiations with Palestinians and Iranian nuclear weapons.” After glossing over the distraction of the Israeli settlements, Mr. Bolton reiterated his long-held position that “Americans must realize that allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is empowering an existential threat to the Israeli state, to Arab governments in the region that are friendly to the U.S., and to long-term global peace and security.”

I suspect that a lot of Americans already recognize that a nuclear-armed Iran is a serious threat to world peace given some of the vile pronouncements of its holocaust-denying leaders. So let me expand on a conspiracy theory that I believe is playing out right now in the Middle East. First, it is almost impossible to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was blindsided by his own Interior ministry during Vice President Biden’s recent visit. Second, the Israelis are too smart to expect anyone to believe as much. Thus, per their master plan, Israel’s Mossad began by intentionally blindsiding the British government with their infamous Dubai operation in January – assassinating a prominent Hamas leader using British identities – and is now making it appear like they can push the United States around as well.

This “modern-day David taking on two western Goliaths back-to-back" is a staged precursor to an imminent Israeli action aimed at taking out relevant Iranian nuclear facilities – without giving Iran any reason to suspect any involvement of the traditional Anglo-American alliance. If the Israeli airstrikes are successful, they will simultaneously achieve both of Mr. Bolton’s stated objectives and additionally contribute to a more favorable outcome in Iraq. It seems to me that Mossad is on the move – setting the stage for what Mr. Bolton has been propagating for a long time, which is “a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear program.” Israel recognizes that such action is the only way to achieve a lasting Middle East peace because it will:

1. Neutralize the Iranian threat and its ascendancy much to the satisfaction of the Arab nations and leadership in the Middle East.
2. Force the Palestinian leadership to jettison “proximity talks” in favor of “direct talks” with them towards a permanent peace settlement.
3. Ensure that Iran will no longer influence the formation of a pro-Iranian government in Iraq following recently concluded parliamentary elections there.

Americans can only hope that Israel gets it right this time just as it did with its pre-emptive strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear facility back in 1981. Two decades later, we were unable to find WMD in Iraq in large part due to that prescient action. If the United Nations cannot convince Iran to abandon its pursuit of WMD, maybe the mighty arm of the Mossad will?

Avoiding Déjà vu All Over Again In U.S. Foreign Policy

(This article was written during the Thanksgiving weekend, but is only being published now. General Musharraf is now "President" Musharraf - but given the circumstances of his transformation, these titles have no meaningful distinction, so I reproduce my original article as is.)

Since its creation sixty years ago, Pakistan has alternated between democracy and military rule every decade or so. So how many times are we going to watch a rerun of the same old movie, in which the U.S. government chooses to support a military dictatorship in Pakistan with money and arms rather than help its people sustain a liberal democracy? And, we choose to do this because it happens to serve our short-term interests better than it does their long-term future? While Pakistan has always been an invaluable ally in the conduct of U.S. foreign policy from the Kirkpatrick Doctrine of the 1980s to the Bush Doctrine of the 2000s, it invariably ends up as a discarded by-product when these doctrines have run their course.

President Bush must surely make a poor poker player. In June 2001, he misread the "honesty" of Russia's Putin by looking into his eyes to get a sense of his soul, which then subsequently proved to be non-existent. After 9/11 he similarly bought into the "sincerity" of Pakistan's Musharraf, who has also betrayed him by his recent actions. General Musharraf has turned out to be a run-of-the-mill dictator that Pakistan routinely produces every decade or so. Musharraf has repeatedly spoken the anti-terrorism language that Bush likes to hear, while acting consistently in an anti-democratic manner during his illegal reign. In this post-9/11 decade, the Bush Administration has spent almost $10 billion to-date on General Musharraf in the vain hopes that he would actually help us win the "war on terror" against an Al Qaeda-Taliban axis that permeates a significant yet nebulous cross-section of Afghani-Pakistani society.

Meanwhile the Bush Administration has more or less ignored the Pakistani people's ever increasing demands for a more meaningful democracy. Hollywood will soon release "Charlie Wilson's War," a movie which depicts how the U.S. coddled another Pakistani military dictator back in the 1980s – in order to get his support in throwing the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Ironically, after Pakistan had helped the U.S. achieve that important goal in 1989, the elder President Bush rewarded them by withholding deliveries of F-16 fighter jets as necessitated by the 1990 Pressler Amendment. Despite the Pressler sanctions, in 1998 Pakistan defiantly carried out its first nuclear test, which forced President Clinton to impose sanctions on a fragile nation in the waning phase of its democratic decade.

In the post-Soviet 1990s, Pakistan also helped an idling Afghan mujaheddin coalesce into the Taliban, which then usurped power in Afghanistan. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan up until 9/11 with an extremist ideology that included succor for Al Qaeda with the tacit support of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) branch of Pakistan's Army. Following 9/11, President Bush struck a Faustian bargain with Pakistan's relatively new military dictator, General Musharraf. In return for cash, arms, and the support of the U.S. government, President Bush sought Musharraf's assistance in crushing the very same Taliban, which Pakistan's military had previously helped create and flourish! Why the Bush Administration ever deemed this to be a winning proposition boggles the mind?

One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, had defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. So when is the U.S. foreign policy establishment going to realize that we need to pursue lasting relationships based on our core values and that we should not repeatedly experiment with unprincipled dalliances of convenience? If U.S. foreign policy continues to placate WMD-possessing military dictators, such as Pakistan's Musharraf and North Korea's Kim Jong Il, while sanctioning or attacking WMD-seeking despots, such as Iran's Ahmedinejad and Iraq's now-deceased Saddam Hussein, then we are only going to hasten the WMD acquisition process amongst so-called rogue nations. More importantly, such a dubious policy makes the U.S. lose credibility in the eyes of the world. Especially in the case of Pakistan, which – despite selling its nuclear technology to rogue nations such as Iran, Libya and North Korea – was seen by the world as getting a free pass from the Bush Administration?

Senator Biden was absolutely right when he suggested that the Bush Administration had a tunnel-vision "Musharraf policy" as opposed to a broad-based "Pakistan policy." It is highly likely that if General Musharraf really starts to feel pressured, he will direct his ISI to instigate suicide bombings – not in the Afghan border region, but near the line of control that demarcates India and Pakistan in Kashmir. The Pakistani military has always had this time-tested way to quickly unite Pakistanis and rev up patriotic fervor – by accusing neighboring India of "exploiting" a volatile situation in Pakistan. In fact, General Musharraf could even have his Army engage in a few border skirmishes with India to distract Pakistani attention from his domestic troubles – this too has been done before.

Nonetheless, the U.S. can no longer afford to maintain a double standard in its dealings with Pakistan – seeking to ensure the stability of this nuclear-armed dictatorship in the short-term at the expense of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for its people in the long term – because this will eventually turn out to be a losing proposition for both sides. Sadly, our 1980s paradigm will not help resolve the current crisis in Pakistan. At least back then, Pakistan's military dictator, General Zia, was actually helping us fight a common enemy (the Soviets). This time around, General Musharraf has suppressed the very symbols of Pakistani democracy – judges, lawyers, the media and opposition leaders – while the bad guys (Al Qaeda-Taliban) continue to openly and freely consolidate their strength.

However, it is not too late to refocus U.S. policy in Pakistan towards freedom and democracy – especially since promoting these core American values were the stated objectives of the Bush second term. Such a policy change is all the more imperative because it is the moderate and literate elements of Pakistani society that are clamoring for democracy and the rule of law. The great Pakistani paradox, which demands the reconciling of a functioning liberal democracy with the seemingly conflicting demands of an orthodox Muslim theology, can only be resolved by the duly elected moderate factions in its society. Pakistan could yet become a shining example of a Muslim democracy, provided its military stops intervening every time it foresees or fakes a "crisis." We would much rather have a nuclear-armed Pakistan run by prudent civilians than by an unpredictable army or some of its more extremist elements. This is the only way we can hope to bring real stability to that critical part of the world.

Thus President Bush should refrain from aiding Pakistan's collapse by sending any more ambiguous messages to General Musharraf. He might recall how a similar lack of clarity on the elder Bush’s part prompted Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait in 1990 – the long term repercussions of which President Bush is still dealing with today. In two of the past three decades, military dictators have happened to rule Pakistan when acquiescing Republican presidents have occupied the White House. General Zia received as much support from the Reagan Administration in the 1980s as General Musharraf has from the Bush Administration in the 2000s.

Yet Musharraf must already be looking beyond the Bush presidency. He probably recognizes that if a Democratic Administration takes over from Bush, it will be less tolerant of the status quo in Pakistan. So General Musharraf will try to continue to consolidate his hold on power over the next fourteen months. And, he is doing so by adopting a classic line from the Bush playbook – claiming that he is "temporarily" trading liberty for security in Pakistan's ongoing assistance with Bush’s "war on terror" – which seems to be receiving sympathetic consideration from the Bush Administration.

In a November 2003 address at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush had proclaimed, "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe — because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export. And with the spread of weapons that can bring catastrophic harm to our country and to our friends, it would be reckless to accept the status quo."

President Bush must surely realize that as long as our foreign policy continues to accommodate friendly dictators in allied Muslim nations such as Egypt, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, we are not going to make any real progress in the larger war on terrorism. If the president can't "walk his own talk" and continues to accept the status quo in Pakistan, how can he expect General Musharraf to behave any differently? If Musharraf is willing to pack his nation's Supreme Court with stooges and amend its constitution so that he can never be held accountable for his actions, he might as well appoint himself president for life and be done with it.

It is long past time for an American president to realize that the only way to avoid experiencing déjà vu all over again with our foreign policy is to let consistency in our principles trump the convenience of our causes, when these two ideals are in conflict. Also, in order to change hearts and minds in the Muslim world, we need to practice a less duplicitous foreign policy with our key Islamic allies. Only by refocusing our foreign policy on core American values, can we expect to make progress in Pakistan and the Muslim world. In fact, only by returning to a foreign policy that is solidly based on our cherished principles, can we regain the respect of the larger fraternity of nations? With the Annapolis summit in mind, now might be a good time for President Bush to send such an unequivocal message to the Arab world.

After Summer Surge, Comes Fall Purge?

Labor Day, which marks the official end of summer, is upon us. Let us hope that this year it marks an end to our discontent with the intense heat both, meteorologically and metaphorically. It was sad to see the President and Congress, who profess to “support our troops” at every opportunity they get, beat a hasty retreat from the hot August nights of Washington, D.C. Before they “got outta Dodge,” they could have at least afforded the same luxury to a few of our valiant troops, who continued to sizzle in the 130 degree heat of Baghdad.

In his July 20, 2007 column, the conservative chameleon Charles Krauthammer decided that after waiting 18 months “for the 80 percent solution,” he now feels comfortable switching sides to “the 20 percent solution.” This happens to be the same 20 percent of the population that ruled under Saddam Hussein’s Iraq – against whom President Bush launched this war, toppled its government, and then proceeded to quickly de-Baathify (akin to de-Sunnify) its new power structure.

Mr. Krauthammer speculated that

“Maliki & Co. are afraid we are arming Sunnis for the civil war to come. On the other hand, we might be creating a rough balance of forces that would act as a deterrent to all-out civil war and encourage a relatively peaceful accommodation. In either case, that will be Iraq’s problem after we leave.”

It is precisely this kind of arrogance and disdain that the Bush Administration has shown in its conduct of the Iraq war and its larger Middle East policy that aggravates and insults Muslim throughout the world. Mr. Krauthammer should have realized by now that his “purely American vision” is unlikely to solve the problem in Iraq and the larger Middle East.

So while he has been cooling off in Kennebunkport this August, President Bush hopefully reflected more deeply on the significance of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s recent visit with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. The two beaming leaders clutched hands, just like President Bush and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia did in Crawford, Texas back in April 2005. This renewed embrace by the two Shiite leaders of Iran and Iraq was a direct consequence of the Petraeus plan that unfolded in the Anbar province of western Iraq over the summer. It is no coincidence that the Maliki government was simultaneously deserted by Sunni leaders in the Iraqi Parliament just as the larger Sunni population began making its peace with U.S. forces west of Baghdad.


The current Shiite government in Iraq, which the Bush Administration helped elect and install, must have had a sense of déjà vu with the resurgence of Sunni power that was being aided by freshly supplied U.S. arms. How long then, it must have wondered, before a Saddam wannabe threatens to topple a duly-elected Shiite government by force? How long before the whole world is back to square one in Iraq?

So both, Democrats and Republicans might just want to reconsider the notion that the main problem in Iraq lies with Mr. Maliki. In order to get the surge to work in Baghdad, General Petraeus struck a deal with Sunni insurgents in Iraq’s western Anbar province. This peace has come at a big price – it not only drove Shiite Prime Minister Maliki into the arms of his Iranian sponsor Ahmedinejad in Tehran, but also got him to embrace Syrian strongman Bashir in Damascus. Rearmed Sunnis must surely have rekindled flashbacks of the Saddam era in the Shia leader’s mind.

Nonetheless, Maliki might just be smarter than we imagine – he could already be making plans for an Iraq after the U.S. leaves. Prime Minister Maliki might just pull of an early “October surprise” for the United States a full year before our own presidential elections – by calling for a phased withdrawal of American troops before President Bush has even had time to digest the Petraeus report. I suspect that Bush’s recent indictment of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and his subsequent Vietnam analogy could have been directed more at Maliki than at the American public?

The Bush Administration has always insisted that “we fight them over there, so that we don't have to fight them over here.” General Petraeus, in lock step with this viewpoint, recently told Rep. Jan Schakowsky that U.S. forces could be in Iraq for the next nine to ten years. Well, pulling out of Iraq might just turn that argument on its head. All manner of pundits have been predicting an all-out civil war in Iraq if we prematurely withdraw. However, there is more likely to be prolonged internecine warfare in the larger Middle East amongst the various Muslim factions – Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, etc – across multiple borders and involving at the very least Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, and the Palestine territories.

While these angry followers of Islam are thus engaged in sorting out their problems, the rest of the western world could be at peace, albeit, an expensive one. We might be forced to pay ten dollars a gallon for gas while it lasts, but in the long run that could well be well worth the price for peace and security in the homeland. More importantly, our overall price tag could be far less than the $500 billion that we have already spent on the Iraq war. Also, at $10 per gallon of gas, I am confident that American ingenuity would quickly develop alternative fuel sources that could rid us of what President Bush referred to as our “addiction to oil.”

A ‘New Clear’ Passage to India

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) came into force in 1970 after China’s first nuclear test in 1964 and before India’s first nuclear explosion ten years later. At that time, the NPT recognized as “nuclear weapon states,” only those nations that had conducted nuclear tests prior to 1967. These nations happened to be the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Although the People’s Republic of China did not take its legitimate place as a UN member until 1971 and then signed the NPT only in 1992.

A recent New York Times editorial lamented that “When it comes to nuclear proliferation, Washington's only real policy is to reward its friends and punish its enemies.” Even if there were something wrong with this typically conservative principle, it should be noted that U.S. foreign policy had made some rather hefty concessions back in the early seventies to accommodate communist China. This was part of President Nixon’s “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” overture to engage one communist giant while trying to contain the other – the Soviet Union.

These progressive considerations of yesteryear have brought us to the current situation, in which China is now viewed by our foreign policy establishment as a long-term strategic threat to the United States. We find ourselves in this predicament, in large part, because our policy of engagement has helped steer China towards a market economy without bringing about commensurate change in its political system and authoritarian form of government.

The afore-mentioned Times editorial also stated that

“President Bush is understandably desperate for some kind of foreign policy success”

and thereby implying that his India strategy could actually chalk one up for him in the win column. It is quite likely that Bush’s forward-thinking nuclear deal with India might do just that. This is one instance where the neocons in the Bush Administration are actually seeing the forest for the trees by laying the foundation for a seminal paradigm shift in 21st century U.S. foreign policy – one that not only addresses our China syndrome, but also considers the larger threat as defined by the ongoing “global war on terror.”

So then why is Wall Street Journal columnist, Bret Stephens, not a happy camper? In a recent column he accused our “new clear” partner of keeping “bad company” with Iran. Mr. Stephens’ probably needs a refresher course on our own recent haphazard dealings with Iran. After 9/11, a “coalition -- made up of Iran, India, Russia and the Northern Alliance, and aided by massive American airpower -- drove the Taliban from power.” Despite this measure of Persian support, barely a couple of months later in his 2002 State of the Union speech, President Bush went on to declare Iran as a charter member of his “axis of evil.” Then, to further confound matters, he placed an unseemly reliance on dubious information from known Iranian-sympathizer, Ahmed Chalabi, and invaded Iraq in March 2003.

If that weren’t bewildering enough, since 2005 President Bush has relied heavily on the Iranian-backed government of Iraqi Prime Minister Al-Maliki to “sustain, govern and defend itself.” But now, with the weight of the impending Petraeus Report hanging over its head, the Bush Administration figures that Shiite Iran’s influence in the Middle East is getting out of control. So the Administration wants to hedge its bets on Iraq and re-supply our traditional Sunni allies, Saudi Arabia and its satellite Gulf States, over $20 billion in an arms deal. This is the same Saudi Arabia that – accounted for fifteen of nineteen hijackers on the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and – gave birth to Osama Bin Laden and the Bush Administration’s original “war on terror.” Is it any wonder then, why they – the Muslim nations – continue to hate us?

If Mr. Stephens could see the forest for the trees, he might have realized that going forward India could actually help us with our tenuous relationship with Iran. More importantly, these two nations could also help us snare our $50 million man, who has enjoyed a safe haven within the borders of another shaky Sunni ally, Pakistan, since his escape from the Tora Bora mountains in late 2001 . From a long term strategic standpoint, just as we look to India as a counter-weight to China in Asia, it is within our national security interests to have a Shia power counter-balance the traditional Sunni hegemony in the Middle East.

From a more practical standpoint, our “new clear” passage to India could mutually benefit not only our two great democracies, but also it could become the basis for new, long-term alliances throughout the western world. My reasoning is based on an observation that I had first made in my 2005 book, “The Bush Diaries,” and is worth repeating:

“The population of the world can be divided into roughly four equal quadrants — Judeo-Christian, Hindu-Buddhist, Muslim, and Communist. A vast majority of the people that constitute the Judeo-Christian and Hindu-Buddhist quadrants happen to live in secular democracies. It would therefore seem natural for these quadrants to be more closely aligned, since they share similar economic and political value systems? One would hope that an alignment of this nature could become an ideal for peace and prosperity throughout the world.”

Mayday Mission Deconstructed – GWOT morphs into the “GWOB”

In a bitter irony, the Democratic Congress will present President Bush a new war funding bill – which he has promised to veto – on the fourth anniversary of his infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech of May 1, 2003. Meanwhile the American public is screaming, “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!” because President Bush is surging troops four years after he had declared “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.”

After tolerating four years of incompetence, the American people had clearly expressed their desire in the 2006 mid-term elections – to change the status quo ante in Iraq. Nevertheless, President Bush persists with a military “surge” strategy that defies the will of a majority of the people. Tragically, the Associated Press reported today that “U.S. Military Deaths Toll Rises Above 100 for Month, Making April Deadliest of 2007 So Far” and it also confirmed that April “has been the deadliest month for British forces in Iraq since the first month of the war.” In a weird twist of fate, the United States has gone from being a purveyor of “shock and awe” to becoming its hapless witness – as is evidenced in the ever-increasing carnage wrought by Iraq’s warring sectarian factions.

It thus seemed even more ironical that on the same day that we learned about the death of former Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, we also read about the American military building the equivalent of the “Great Wall of Baghdad (GWOB).” One might recall the big bear from Moscow climbing atop a tank to defend Russia’s fledgling democracy in 1991– an action that came to symbolize the tipping point in the dismantling of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Exactly twenty months and ten days after the Berlin Wall fell, the great wall of totalitarianism surrounding the “evil empire” had also been irrevocably ruptured.

Given the significance of walls in political history, it was rather distressing to find out that the world’s greatest democracy had sanctioned the erection of the GWOB in the darkest traditions of Berlin and Belfast. Could the U.S. have emulated a worse symbol of authoritarian occupation in Iraq than through a Soviet-style balkanization of the Iraqi people? The Global War on Terror (GWOT) has just morphed into what could become its defining symbol – the GWOB. So much for bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East – yet another of the Bush Administration’s ever-changing Iraq objectives has been turned on its head.

Finally, with their reported attempts to appoint a war czar at home, it is apparent that the Bush Administration is no longer in a state of denial – they are clearly trying to finesse a war situation that is going from bad to worse. President Bush has surely seen the writing on the wall – but it is not the graffiti on the GWOB going up in Iraq. No, I suspect that he has finally foreseen the fate of his GWOT policy of preemption, a.k.a. the Bush Doctrine. No one should be surprised if there is a “Roving” hand behind this final preemptive strike – to appoint a fall guy to manage the chaos as “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight” heads for the exit on the greatest disaster in American foreign policy in history.

Paradigm Shift in U.S. Foreign Policy

A little over a year before the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly voted in his favor as President-elect, George W. Bush had been unable to name the foreign leaders of either the world's largest democracy, India, or its neighbor, Pakistan – which was soon to become a critical "ally" in the ensuing global war on terror.

An on-the-job training exercise that began with a botched air skirmish with China in the spring of 2001 continues to this day. The world has witnessed a series of bungled Bush foreign policy efforts that now include Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Pakistan and even Russia.

Senator Clinton launched her 2008 presidential campaign with a catchy phrase, when she declared, "…I'm in it to win it." President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would each have the world believe that this same phrase applies to their adamant positions on Iraq. It boggles one’s mind, nonetheless, that their recent contradictory moves on troop strength – Bush is surging while Blair is purging – have to be accepted by a more rational American public as, in Vice President Cheney’s own words, "…things are going pretty well."

When was the last time that the U.S. was so bitterly divided over a war? It was during the Vietnam War, when a majority of the American people believed that they had been lied to or deceived. In a karmic sense of déjà vu, the American public is once again witnessing the inability of a U.S. Administration – driven more by ego and less by principle – to accept reality. It is also quite obvious that the Bush Administration will continue to be, with apologies to Senator Clinton, “in it to spin it" until the political process forces a necessary change in leadership.

In an ironic reversal of roles, art has been imitating life in these United States where Hollywood has been taking its cue from Washington. Viewers of the popular TV series "24" cannot help but notice that this fictional show has more or less been following the script of the real life Bush Administration in these past couple of seasons. In both instances, members of the Administration seem to "love" their country more than its constitution – if that is even possible – and seem to be deluded into believing that their “unconditional love” puts them above the law?

Unfortunately, in the real world, the U.S. has been left with little control over its foreign policy. The primary lesson coming off the Bush Doctrine is that the U.S. must never use preemptive military power, unless it is certain that it will help attain attendant political objectives. The adjunct message is that if the military objective has been achieved, but the corresponding political objectives do not follow, the application of more military power is unlikely to yield the desired results.

So where does this leave the Foreign Policy of the United States (FPOTUS)? It might help if President Bush were to revisit recent FPOTUS history. Years before President Reagan initiated his long term FPOTUS strategy to win the Cold War; President Nixon had done the spade work by introducing a paradigm shift in the FPOTUS by opening a critical door – to China! This dramatic change was based on a simple principle – the enemy (China) of my enemy (Soviet Union) is my friend – that helped bring the Cold War closer to the "evil empire's" home and initiate its eventual collapse.

After 9/11 the United States government was accused of being unable to think outside the box. The FPOTUS under the Bush Administration has been stuck inside a “neocon” box, which has released “Pandoras” that they have been unable to control. In attempting to resolve the current mess in the Middle East, President Bush might want to opt for a paradigm shift in the FPOTUS. The enemy (Shia Iran) of my enemy (Sunni Al Qaeda) could radically alter the dynamics of the global war on terror and help return control of the FPOTUS to a weakened presidency.

Why are we so awful at foreign policy?

In his New York Times column, “Stumbling Around the World”, Nicholas Kristof begs an answer to the question: Why are we so awful at foreign policy? Before I attempt to answer this question, I would like to cite two examples provided by Mr. Kristof:

Iraq is the example of the moment. We invaded, thinking that we would get a pro-American bulwark, cheap oil, long-term military bases and the gratitude of liberated Iraqis. Instead, we fought Iraq, and Iran won.

Speaking of which, look at Iran. In 1953, we helped overthrow the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, to achieve a more pro-Western government. That created tensions that led to the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the rise of mullahs with nuclear dreams. If it weren’t for our own policies, Iran might well now have a pro-American government.

Not surprisingly, since World War II, a linkage can be established between America’s preemptive wars/wars of choice and their desired outcomes: they have invariably failed and set back U.S. foreign policy for decades. In fact, if the target country had just two of its three defining national characteristics – language, religion, and form of government – differ widely from that of the western world, then invariably U.S. political objectives in a lengthy preemptive war (i.e. a war of choice) were never met.

In fact, even the short, CIA-supported, 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba failed to overthrow Fidel Castro and helped further solidify Cuba's relationship with the Soviet Union. Forty five years later Castro is still around and Cuba remains standing as one of the last vestiges of the communist dominoes.

Over fifty years after the Korean Armistice and thirty odd years after our ignominious withdrawal from Saigon – North Korea and Vietnam remain as the other glaring examples of communist dominoes that our failed foreign policy ventures have left standing.

President Bush is now trying hard to prevent yet another U.S. foreign policy domino theory – the Bush Doctrine, which calls for pre-emptive action against states that pursue WMD programs and/or support terrorism in the name of religion – from failing in Iraq and spreading undesirable outcomes throughout the Middle East. If we fail in Iraq, the Bush Administration is concerned that Iran and Syria will be the next dominoes to fall – in that, they will acquire WMD and more overtly support terrorist acts against western interests around the world.

My answer to Mr. Kristof’s question can be found in a letter of mine that was published in The Wall Street Journal on October 6, 2006:

We continue to talk about the "root cause of terrorism," but there seems to be a basic disconnect between the Judeo-Christian and Muslim worlds' reasoning on this issue. Muslim dictators use their convenient line that "Palestine is the core issue," while Western leaders seem to have coalesced on "freedom and democracy" as being their core issue in the post-9/11 era.
The U.S. could make serious progress with this reasoning if it showed some consistency in the application of its core values to its foreign policy. This would necessarily imply that we make no exceptions of convenience even in the short-term: Musharraf, Mubarak, Nazarbayev, Abdallah, et al. We insult the intelligence of the common Muslim populace with these exceptions of convenience -- this is the core issue, it seems to me.

The bottom line is that we are so awful at foreign policy because it is not consistent, it does not reflect our core values, and we make too many exceptions of convenience.

Fear Leader

The Bush Administration currently has foreign policy crises of gargantuan proportions on its hands: a worsening Iraqi sectarian war, a resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, a defiant Iran in pursuit of nuclear weapons, belligerent North Korea launching missiles, and an Israeli-Lebanon war provoked by Iran and Syria. This sordid mess is both, direct and indirect fallout from a doctrine of unintended consequences – which is, nothing else but a catastrophic failure in the execution of the Bush Doctrine. All manner of pundits are seeing this preemption strategy for what it is now, but in the immediate aftermath of our glorious, albeit incomplete, triumph in Afghanistan it was largely praise when President Bush first outlined his provocative “axis of evil” policy. In an article, “State of the World”, written immediately after his 2002 State of the Union speech, I had made the following observations:

Buoyed by stratospheric approval ratings in his execution of the war on terrorism, President Bush now appears to be milking the “terror cow” for what it’s worth! At least one got that impression after listening to the President touch briefly on a few domestic issues in the middle of his speech, while devoting most of his attention to the “state of the world”!

One would like to give kudos to the President’s speechwriters for coming up with a quotable gem like “axis of evil”. However, one must wonder if the President and his advisors have really considered all the implications of engaging such a disparate axis in protracted, simultaneous, and geographically dispersed wars, if it became necessary? Are we ready to walk that talk?

More than fours years later, it has become quite apparent that we are in the midst of the very situation that I had warned about and President Bush’s responses thus far have more or less proven that he is unable to “walk that talk”. The whole world has had a good laugh at the expense of the despot, Kim Jong Il who insists on being referred to as “Dear Leader” by his people. Ironically, it is “we the people” of the United States who elected our very own “Fear Leader” – he, who intended to strike fear among the hearts of all the world’s evil dictators with his post-9/11 policies, but in reality has managed to largely scare his own citizenry with conveniently-timed reminders of how these evil dictators are out to harm America.

Not surprisingly the domestic fear-mongering is wearing thin and even neo-conservatives who fashioned the original Bush Doctrine are beginning to wonder, in the light of the current crises, whether the President has the will to see it through. Already former Speaker and 2008 presidential contender, Newt Gingrich is talking about “World War III” and other pundits have compared the current turmoil similar to the one that sparked World War I. Given these dire pronouncements, it might be time for President Bush to stop, not only leading with fear but also fearing to lead – his presidency, his legacy, and most importantly our status as the world’s only remaining superpower is at stake.

PRESIDENCY AND PUNDITRY UNPLUGGED

THE BUSH DIARIES: A Citizen’s Review of the First Term
Jack Nargundkar

(Germantown, MD, July 21, 2005)— 7/7 has put President Bush’s oft-repeated claim—“We will fight the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them here at home” —on notice. While announcing the release today of his first book, The Bush Diaries, author Jack Nargundkar echoed a growing American sentiment relating to the efficacy of this policy in stopping homegrown terrorists:

“I suspect that both, a botched implementation of the Bush Doctrine and the media’s pre-Iraq war complacency, are responsible for our current quandary, which keeps us all in a state of perpetual anxiety with respect to our way of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! This isn’t the way it was supposed to be?”

In The Bush Diaries, Jack Nargundkar recommends that the United States commit to two critical Cs in our foreign relations, especially when it comes to Muslim nations. A foreign policy that reflects our core values and one that is applied consistently; but one that forsakes convenience by refusing to make policy exceptions for allied countries with values that are antithetical to our own.

On the evolving Iran-Iraq relationship, Jack Nargundkar writes in The Bush Diaries,

“I think that Shia hegemony as a counter-balance to Sunni Arab supremacy—if allowed to proceed as a natural evolution of the new realpolitik in the Middle East—could benefit us in the long-term, without the need for another preemptive war in the short-term.”

In The Bush Diaries, Jack Nargundkar kept tabs on what the political pundits—at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times—had to say about the President’s policies and responded to them in real time. Some of his opinions were published by each one of these prestigious newspapers. The key difference between The Bush Diaries and other books on President Bush: Jack Nargundkar comments not only on the performance of the President, but he also critiques the media pundits who evaluate the presidency.

Jack Nargundkar has spent over 20 years as a marketing professional in the global software and telecommunications industries. As a first generation Indian-American, Jack Nargundkar brings a unique perspective to U.S. economic and foreign policy. An Executive Education Fellow at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Jack Nargundkar has a BSEE from Bombay University and an MBA from Columbia Business School in New York City.

THE BUSH DIARIES: A Citizen’s Review of the First Term
290 pp, $19.95
ISBN: 0-595-35898-5
Author: Jack Nargundkar
Publisher: iUniverse
Publication Date: July 2005
Available From: Ingram Book Group, Baker & Taylor, and iUniverse
To order: call 1-800-AUTHORS or go online at any of the following:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0595358985/qid=1123084435/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-5718978-7163300?v=glance&s=books

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Xy63I1dBQR&isbn=0595358985&itm=3





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Jack Nargundkar vs. James Taranto in “Best of the Web Today”

Who would have thought that my letter published in The New York Times on Friday, April 1, 2005 would create such a buzz? The letter pointed out several lessons learned from the Terri Schiavo case. But this one point in the letter seemed to have especially galled conservatives:

The most critical conclusion to be drawn from the [Schiavo] case is that with the injection of religion into our politics and our governance, it has become increasingly difficult to differentiate between the demands of "evangelism" in a Western democracy and "fundamentalism" in a Middle Eastern theocracy.

So James Taranto, Editor of the OpinionJournal, offered me some help in his “Best of the Web Today” column yesterday. In offering me that unsolicited advice, I felt that Mr. Taranto had missed the crux of my argument. I therefore e-mailed him a clarification this morning. Sure enough, Mr. Taranto published only the first part of my response in his column today. Here’s the second part, which he did not publish, and which is critical to my line of reasoning:

James, in my letter to the The New York Times, I had also said, "If we really want to promote a 'culture of life', then human life ought to be precious in every situation, and not only under political circumstances." Politicians (Congress and the President) tried to force the courts to act in a certain way (i.e., reinsert Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, in order to save her life). The courts, per their interpretation of the law, consistently refused to act in the way intended by these politicians. If we are to convince other nations, including fledgling democracies and Middle Eastern theocracies that we are a nation of laws, albeit, secular laws - then, evangelists in this country need to accept that fact as gospel! With your distinguishing remark, "If someone is demanding that a life be spared, he's probably an evangelist in a Western democracy. If he's demanding the infidels be murdered, chances are he's a fundamentalist in a Middle Eastern theocracy", you confirm my other observation in my letter to the Times - conservatives have let emotions override their better judgment on this issue!

In drawing “attention to sloppy thinking” in today's column, Mr. Taranto makes a conclusion, which I never did:

“But equating them to fundamentalist terrorists is a cheap shot, and an intellectually indefensible one.”

I never inferred that evangelical Christians, trying to save the life of a woman on life support, were the equivalent of fundamentalist terrorists. My larger point was simply this - if we let our religious beliefs dictate against the established law of the land, we are not only violating our constitution but also allowing ourselves to become like them. Mr. Taranto's refers to Martin Luther King as one:

"who made no effort to separate his belief in racial equality from its roots in Christianity".

But Mr. King equally drew from "The Declaration of Independence" in demanding this equality:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

It is OK to use one’s faith as a personal guide to govern, but it is unconstitutional to use one’s religion as an instrument of government – that’s what theocracies do. By honoring the principle of “separation of powers”, we should all want them to become more like us - that was my key message in my letter to the Times!

From the Gulag to the Gitmo

Today's Washington Post editorial "More Excuses" reminded me of that memorable scene from the Jack Nicholson movie, “A Few Good Men”. In this instance, however, I envisioned Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III roaring at his recent Senate Armed Services Committee panel hearing, “You can’t handle the truth!”

When President Bush looked into Vladimir Putin’s eyes and got a sense of his soul, he must have also realized why the Soviet Union thought that the gulags were indispensable during the Cold War? They believed that the security of the state was paramount, and it had no constitutional provisions for individual liberties. In the post-9/11 era, the Bush Administration has perpetrated the likes of Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and an incredible phenomenon called “rendition” in trying to ensure the security of the United States. Putin must surely be thinking, "What used to be good for the goose (i.e., the Soviet Union), has become even better for the gander (i.e., the U.S.A)? So why does this Jim Hoagland[1] guy think I have a "siege mentality" and a "defiant demeanor"? Reassess this, comrade!" Note to Bush: in the long run, the gulags did not guarantee the security of the "evil empire".

To maintain any sense of credibility, as he goes about promoting democracy and freedom around the world, President Bush needs to use the constitution of the United States of America as a guide, and The Declaration of Independence as a moral compass. The endowments of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are absolute - they cannot be traded for stability or convenience. If President Bush hopes to see, what Thomas Friedman[2] calls, a Baghdad spring "blossom into sustainable democracy" across the Middle East, he needs to practice what he preaches. Charity, per the old idiom, begins at home!

[1] The reference is to The Washington Post op-ed columnist, Jim Hoagland, whose article entitled, “Reassessing Putin” appears in today’s edition of the Post.
[2] The reference is to The New York Times op-ed columnist, Thomas Friedman, whose article entitled, “New Signs on the Arab Street” appears in today’s edition of the Times.