Shifting Winds in Washington?

The recent tax cuts in the face of enormous deficits and the political pandering around immigration are embarrassing to those of us who would like to see our country get back on track. And certainly the possibility that Bush may launch an attack against Iran anytime between now and the summer of 2007 is a sobering thought. But the wind is shifting in Washington. Things are being said that I don't believe are particularly accurate but it's worth listening in as we bear witness to the changes, whatever they may mean. Here's Michael Hirsh of Newsweek:

An old word is gaining new currency in Washington: containment. You may be hearing a lot more of it as the Bush administration hunkers down for its final two years. Containment of Iraq’s low-level civil war, which shows every sign of persisting for years despite the new government inaugurated this week. Containment of Iran’s nuclear power, which may lead to a missile defense system in Europe. Containment of the Islamism revived by Hamas and Hizbullah, by the Sunni suicide bombers in Iraq, as well as by the “Shiite Crescent”—as Jordan’s King Abdullah once called it—running from Iran through Southern Iraq and into the Gulf.

During the cold war, containment doctrine was based on the premise that the Soviet Union was a powerful force that was going to be around for a long time to come. Containment’s chief author, George Kennan, concluded that the best Washington could do was to keep the Soviet bloc penned up in its sphere of influence until it expired of its own internal problems...

(snip)

No such strategizing surrounds the current version of containment. Indeed, few people in the Bush administration will even concede they are thinking in such terms, because the president has not permitted an honest reckoning of the difficulties he faces. On Monday, Bush again appeared to sidestep the realities, calling the new “free Iraq” “a devastating defeat for the terrorists.” Back in Iraq, however, it was just another typical day: some 20 Iraqis died in bombings and drive-by shootings, with few or no arrests.

So today’s containment is a furtive policy being developed willy-nilly behind the scenes, as Bush’s pragmatic second-term officials seek to clean up the vast Mideast mess left by the ideologues who dominated in the first term.

For a number of years, words that gained currency in Washington have been a certified nuisance rather than possible signs of useful ideas or dialogue; to name a few: preemptive strike, contract with America, ownership society, regime change, trickle-down economics, moral values, character, creating reality and compassionate conservativism are just a few I've had my fill of. So immediately I'm wary of whatever words the Washington of this particular era finds useful. Certainly Hirsh's article suggests it would be a step in the right direction to pull back from a reckless foreign policy to one that is more measured while effectively protecting our national security.

But Hirsh sees possible pragmatism while I, as a distant outsider, am more inclined to see continuing chaos and desperation on the part of Bush, on the part of people like Cheney and Rumsfeld and on the part of the various factions on the Republican side of Congress. In an effort to stop the cascading failures, expediency can easily be mistaken for pragmatism. I fully expect to see a lot of useless pandering to the voters between now and November that fail to address any of our problems which now include: two wars (possibly three), numerous neglected and unaddressed foreign policy and diplomatic issues including Iran, huge deficits, a loss of national credibility both in terms of our word in international relations and our ability to get things done, the failures of Katrina that still are unaddressed, an energy crisis, corruption, cronyism, a reckless disregard for the national good and the continuing erosion of good-paying American jobs (I have no doubt I missed a few).

And yet Hirsh, being closer to the action, might be on to something. Perhaps failure is finally sinking in and the players of Washington know that business as usual will no longer play on main street. For one thing, war is profitable for only so long. And perhaps Republicans and their wealthy backers are beginning to understand that the organized and legal sacking of America may be damaging the economy that is paying the bills for so much of the Republican Party's extravagant nonsense.

Hirsh ends his article with these words:

The biggest problem with the new embrace of containment in this era, of course, is that it is largely unconscious—and it has gone unacknowledged in public. It may be time to call it by its name.

Now that's a useful observation but consciousness is not a small hurdle in the George W. Bush presidency.