Bush Administration's Mideast Scorecard Dismal, Paid In Blood

STEPPING back to look at the overall situation in the Middle East for the United States after nearly seven years of Bush Administration work, the picture is as dangerous as a Calilfornia wildfire.

Looking at the forest is worse than looking at the trees. There is a major fire burning in the form of the Iraq war and several more tinder-dry areas smoking. Given the region's violent history, it is fair to say that a hot, dry wind is always blowing.

It is very clear that the top foreign policy priority of the administration since its inception has been the Middle East, made clear in accounts of the early days of the administration as well as in the off-hand way it treated America's traditional allies, Russia, China, and the United Nations in the run-up to the Iraq war. With the exception of the United Kingdom, they didn't see a reason for the invasion of Iraq, opposed it, and didn't support it once it started.

None of the problems now embroiling the Middle East have much to do with 9/11. That attack was launched from Afghanistan, on the fringe of the Middle East. If there is now al-Qaeda in much of the Middle East, it was fed mightily by the war in Iraq.

The hot war now is in Iraq, where the United States has more than 160,000 troops in harm's way. Many more are clustered in neighboring countries and on ships in the region. U.S. deaths in Iraq have dropped over the past few months, but we still have lost more than 3,800, an average rate of 70 per month. The cost of the war continues to run at $280 million per day. In addition to the war in Iraq, with the administration having no credible end-game and the Democrats in the Congress looking more hopeless at stopping it each day, there are three other major issues in the Middle East, with none of them promising anything good for the United States.

---EOE---

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