If This is Success, What is Failure?
Bush's Words of Optimism and What They Tell Us
By Jacques Amalric
August 25, 2005
Experience has taught us that George Bush’s statements are an excellent barometer for getting an idea of the Iraq situation: the more optimistic the president of the United States says he is, the more we can expect the worst. We still remember his victory cry “Mission accomplished!” that following the entry of American troops into Baghdad.
He was, in fact, only declaring the beginning of a series of setbacks that have already cost the lives of nearly 2,000 GIs and several tens of thousands of Iraqis. It is for this reason that one must worry about the energetic statements made last Tuesday by the head of the White House
; evoking the laborious compromise that was reached, after much pressure applied by America’s Ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad, to Shiites and Kurds on the draft of the Iraqi Constitution, George Bush celebrated the achievement of a “period of hope” thanks to an “unbelievable event.”
Undoubtedly for good measure, he had his spokesperson stress the “impressive progress made on most of the Constitution’s provisions, via debate, dialogue and seeking compromise.”
Reality, of course, is totally different: the draft of the Constitution, the text of which is still being kept secret, would make Islam the “main source” of legislation and would leave the fate of Kirkuk, which is in Sunni territory but is claimed by the Kurds, up in the air. Little chance thus that it guarantees, as George W. Bush claimed, “the rights of minorities and of women.”
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