Thoughts on Bush's speech yesterday

[smokingboot]

Just a little political mewing

'We must shake off decades of failed policy in the Middle East. Your nation and mine in the past have been willing to make a bargain: to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. Long-standing ties often led us to overlook the faults of local elites. Yet this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe. It merely bought time while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold.'

This is true, and I'm pleased he's is ready to admit it in plain terms.

This choosing of a supposed 'lesser evil,' has been a pivot of British foreign policy, adopted and adapted by the US, and long term it's just total pants.

Happened with the shah, happens over and over again. In a destabilised region, we don't care how rotten our 'candidate' is to their own people, as long as they're a good puppy for us. So we back them, we train them, we arm them, and then twenty years on, we hear (imagine?) finger on the button noises headed our way and we panic.

Then we go to war, because they're eeeeevilll. And often, they are. They were evil when we were selling them guns and ammo and chemicals, they were raping their own, torturing their own, stealing from their people all that time. And we tolerated it cos it was good for our interests - or better, we decided, than the alternatives.

The antidote to war surely is foresight, in the recognition that short term gain does not always make for long term peace. If Bush is really seeing that, then perhaps some progress has been made.