There’s a Chicken Little factor

If the Bush White House excels at anything, it’s keeping secrets. With the sudden departure of political director Karl Rove, who frequently leaked information to pet reporters for political purposes, the mystery about who’s responsible for what decisions can only deepen.

Since the administration rarely tells the truth about anything, divining its intentions requires American “Kremlinology,” a term once used for decoding Soviet Russian propaganda. If you can figure out who wants you to believe something, it’s sometimes possible to understand why. From there, underlying facts can be deduced. Maybe.

In foreign policy, two factions are reportedly competing for Bush’s ear. Supposedly, these groups are represented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who allegedly favors diplomatic engagement with Iran, and Vice President Darth Cheney, who’d prefer to bomb them back to 333 B.C., when Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian capital of Persepolis.

Cheney has long been an adept of the Chicken Little school of international relations, in which the sky is always falling and only launching another pre-emptive war can save us. The theory is that following a massive bombing attack, Iranians would rise up to overthrow their government, as the United States presently has no army available for the job. Sure they would.

Back in the 1980s, the Chicken Little faction dubbed itself “Team B.” They claimed that the CIA was gravely underestimating the Soviet threat. Disaster loomed. Soon afterward, the USSR imploded, partly due to military disaster in (yes) Afghanistan. In retrospect, the CIA had greatly oversold Russian might, thanks mainly to domestic political pressure.

Today, the Chicken Little brigade warns that should we fail to respond to the Iranian “threat,” we could soon find ourselves living in an America where Paris Hilton has been stoned to death, Britney Spears has to go around in a baggy black chador, and the World Series will be contested by men wearing beards and turbans. I get frequent e-mails warning that “Islamofascism” threatens to conquer the United States.

So last week we had the spectacle of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki traveling to Tehran, where he was photographed holding hands with Iranian President (and designated “madman”) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In a CNN interview days earlier, Afghan President Hamid Karzai had characterized Iran as a “helper.” In a joint press conference with Karzai, President Bush strongly disagreed. He later vowed a “heart to heart” with al-Maliki to straighten him out, too.

The bitter truth is that al-Maliki is no more Prime Minister of Iraq than the aforementioned Miss Spears. Iraq no longer exists; its government is a fiction. Al-Maliki heads the Da’wa party, a Shiite sectarian organization allied with Iran. The so-called “insurgency” is almost entirely Sunni. Remember three weeks ago when “Al Qaeda-in-Iraq” was the big enemy? They’re among al-Maliki’s opponents in Iraq’s increasingly worsening civil war. “The Surge?” Pretty much beside the point.

In summary, the Bush administration started a second war before winning the first. In consequence, Osama bin Laden remains at large, while Americans die every day vainly refereeing a chaotic civil war in Iraq. With the U.S. in danger of losing both wars simultaneously, Cheney’s pressing for a third war against an opponent larger than the other two combined.

That’s not conservatism, neo- or otherwise.

It’s madness.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons can be reached at [email protected].