"Bush is responsible for everything that happens in Iraq"

leave it to juan cole to cut to the chase...

In Middle Eastern autocracies like Syria, the television news will show long clips of the president sitting with some visitor, with the sound off but some music in the background. It seems to go on forever. Stories about Bush's comments on an event like the parliament bombing are the American equivalent of those toadying, lingering camera caresses. Bush is responsible for everything that happens in Iraq, because he created this situation with his greed and ineptitude. If you were going to do a story on his reaction to a bombing in the Green Zone, it should be about how he didn't do enough to stop it. Or, you could ask why he keeps suggesting that there is a moral derangement in the bombers, which explains everything. The bombers aren't just immoral, they are using kamikaze tactics in a political cause (ending the US military presence in their country and dislodging the government set up under US auspices). Diverting attention from their politics to their immorality is a way for Bush to deny that his own political project in Iraq provoked this response.

the principal point of professor cole's post is to express his frustration at how, despite the fact that the iraqi parliament bombing in the green zone is evidence of a greatly worsening situation in baghdad, the u.s. media gave the implications little play, opting instead for the usual o.j. simpson/anna nicole smith effluvium, this time in the form of don imus, and then bush's ridiculous statement of condemnation in response, as if he might possibly APPROVE...

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