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The United States is losing the support of traditional allies like Australia, where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd -- despite his saluting and musing to Bush about 14 of his nation's prime ministers having met 12 U.S. presidents before him -- has decided to pull back troops from Iraq and get involved in humanitarian work instead.
With his security partners thinning, Bush has tried his luck with smaller European nations by trying to get them into the European Union in exchange for troops, but this has failed. He has tried to sell fear of Iran, and the need for missile defense systems against weapons of mass destruction Tehran might lob into Europe, but this has also failed.
But Bush simply cannot fail to make it into the history books as a president who waged just wars to save the United States. He must also do everything possible to avoid having the next president look brighter than him. For that, he needs to walk away from a strategic failure and pass the buck to the next president.
When the U.S. presidential hopefuls talk of pulling troops back from Iraq and about imminent changes in the United States, they may not have taken into account the possibility of Bush attacking Iran.
That would mean a U.S. military presence in four nations in a chain -- Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, where a bigger troop presence is likely in the future for training and joint combat operations against the Taliban and al-Qaida.
After all, hasn't Bush tried to prove all along he was better than his Dad and could act decisively? Bush warned Tehran against making any wrong choices -- like arming, training and funding illegal militant groups -- apart from living in peace with Iraq.
A similar warning was issued to Saddam Hussein and his Iraqi regime to come clean on WMDs. If he did not own up to them because he had nothing to own up to, then he was assumed to be lying.
While Dick Cheney feels that nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran when they are ready, would be an inducement to use rather than a Cold War type deterrent ---considering Ahmedenijad's wish to be the 12tth imam---Arabic translations had revealed the call for extermination of Jews actually meant the regime in Israel.
But Bush has to complete regime change in at least two of the three "rogue states" in his Axis of Evil. North Korea is not part of the energy hub that fuels the United States, the world's largest consumer. But Iran, which sits on ample reserves, has got to be reined in and its "evil" regime changed.
When Democracy Now asked Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz who was profiting from the Iraq war, he cited two big gainers: the oil companies and defense contractors. And don't we all know by now who was behind some of the oil companies and who burnt their midnight oil to ratchet up fear among Americans for an Iraq invasion?
Oil companies and defense contractors must be again gearing up to fill their kitty as Iran's oilfields are again motivating the Bush administration for another attack.
Having sacrificed U.S. championship of human rights and rule of law to Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, Bush wants to prove again he can take action unilaterally and spontaneously by preparing to attack Iran, with a bellicosity that George Bush Sr. lacked.
Not only has his son flouted the lofty ideals enshrined by the U.S. Founding Fathers, he has turned the wealthiest nation into an irresponsible interventionist despised by many in the world. Will the Americans hold Bush and his cohorts accountable for taking their country to war against imaginary threats while fighting a war to flush out perpetrators of 9/11 in Afghanistan?
If not, then will there be any safety net for not only U.S. citizens, but for nations the world over from being held hostage by future White House occupants who, with their power and arrogance, can plunge countries into disaster? With the Iraq war cost -- if and when it ends -- to touch US$3 trillion, the promise that the invasion would pose no tax burden has already set recession in motion and the spin-off is being felt all across the world.
With a tinderbox dry Iran, the fires Bush started along with the like-minded neoconservatives by invading Iraq is now threatening to wreak havoc on the fringes of South Asia as well.
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(Susenjit Guha is a freelance writer living in Kolkata, India. He can be contacted at sguha60@yahoo.com. ©Copyright Susenjit Guha.)
