the Dangerous time
Is the Bush Administration sending more troops into Iraq, and consolidating them in and around Baghdad, in preparation for an attack upon Iran?
Is the Bush Administration colluding with the OIL companies to expand oil/gas inventories before each report, in order to deflate gas prices before the election?
Is the Bush Administration, in collusion with the major broadcasting media, purposefully deprecating the common notion that Dick Cheney's office is where the "real power" is located?
Is the Bush Administration deliberately soft-pedaling it's rhetoric toward Iran in order to further soothe OIL markets, Stock markets, the American electorate, and lull the Iranian leadership into a false sense of security?
Is the Olmert government, assisted by the Likud party, deliberately exuding weakness and disunity, in the wake of the Lebanon war, in order to assist the Bush Administration in it's plans for 'dealing' with Iran?
Are the Saudi's in on the game?
In my opinion, the likely answer is YES to all these questions.
The Bush Administration and the GOP are currently engaged in an all out effort to retain control of the U.S. House and Senate in the November 7 elections. To maximize the effect they must conduct a most delicate exercise in "message". Simultaneously emphasizing the Terror 'threat', while sublimating the 'war' in Iraq, and dragging their feet and sending 'mixed-signals' with respect to the UN and Iran.
The purpose of this 'campaign' is to sufficiently energize the GOP voter base without further inflaming the DEM opposition. It is in this effort that GAS prices play a crucial role.
For if the GOP can preserve it's congressional majorities, the threat of investigations, indictments, crushing legal expenses, and institutional inhibitions over the 'unitary executive', can be thwarted for the balance of W's term as President.
But, thanks to Dick Cheney, they have a backup 'plan'. For if the Democrats are successful on election day, and regain control of the House and/or Senate, the Bush Administration will then have 60-70 days in which to initiate policies, unhampered by Congress, that would effectively thwart any serious effort by the incoming Democrats to exhume the past or to significantly moderate the immediate future.
Would the Bush Administration enact Cheney's "pre-emptive" strategy by attacking Iran in order to preserve the prerogatives of the "unitary executive" during 'wartime', to stay free from temporal legal and political "complications", and to establish the basic boundaries of "executive power" between a Congress and a President/CiC for any future Democrat who seeks the Oval Office?
That is the truly dangerous question?
I fear that because of the nature of Dick Cheney, the answer is "Yes". In which case, the old axiom of "be careful what you wish for, you just might get it" comes into play with reference to Democratic party success in the November elections. Or as taught in the 'Archie Campbell School of Politics", the outcome of the elections will be Bad/Good, whoever prevails.
A Democratic victory will provide a chance for a return to a more wise and natural set of "checks and balances" between the Legislative and Executive branches, but only after a particularly dangerous interim.
A Republican victory will elimate the pressure of several existential threats to the current administration's final two years in office, and thereby reduce the need for immediate and irreversible policy actions.
Of course, foreign policy is not the only arena in play. A Recession is teed-up and ready to go, should the Democrats win the House and/or Senate.
Because after all, in this system, there is always another election.
stephenhsmith
20Sept2006
