Is It All Bush's Fault?

Watching Bush meander around the world stage is like watching an amateurish production of Shakespeare. We need Olivier and all we've got is this community theater ham."

Frank Rich : "So what's the latest White House strategy to distract from the escalating mayhem? Yet another P.R. scheme, in this case drawn from the playbook of fall 2003, when the president countered news of the growing Iraq insurgency by going around the media 'filter' to speak to the people through softball interviews with regional media outlets. Thus the past two weeks have brought the spectacle of Mr. Bush yukking it up at Graceland, flattering immigrant workers at a Dunkin' Donuts, patronizing a children's lemonade stand in Raleigh, N.C., and meeting the press in such comfy settings as an outside-the-filter press conference (in Chicago) and 'Larry King Live.' The people, surely, are feeling better already about all that nasty business abroad."

The newsmagazine columnists also weigh in. Time's Joe Klein :

"Last week's Middle East confrontation had Bush-folly written all over it--and not just because the Iranian government's cowboy faction might be strutting its stuff. Bush's failure to patiently broker a real Middle East settlement--mostly because he refused to speak to Yasser Arafat or demand concessions from the Israelis--helped lead to Israel's unilateral withdrawal policy in Gaza. Peace isn't made unilaterally."

Newsweek's Michael Hirsh :

"It is the calls Bush didn't--or couldn't--make that might mean the difference in containing this new Mideast conflict. As part of his policy of isolating terror-supporting groups and nations, the Bush administration has no relationship with any of the other parties at war or the states behind them. That apparently means no dialogue, even through back channels, with Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas. Senior U.S. officials also said Bush and Rice had no intention of appointing a special envoy at this time . . . As a result, the president must watch and hope while his whole Mideast legacy--his goal of transforming a region that is the primary source for Islamist terrorism--stands at risk."

The right, as you would expect, is not pleased. Power Line's Paul Mirengoff rips the Dems:

"In an obscene attempt to obtain political mileage, the Democrats are claiming that President Bush is responsible for the outbreak of war in the Middle East. Howard Dean claims that the war would not have occurred if the Democrats had been in power because the Dems would have worked the past six years to prevent it. And Sen. Dodd has made basically the same assertion. Meanwhile, Rep. Jane Harmon contends that the Bush administration is to blame for our poor to non-existent relations with Syria and Iran which, she says, prevent us from using diplomacy to end the crisis.

"Once again, the Democrats are taking partisan politics to a previously unknown low. No past opposition party has attempted to blame the outbreak of an Arab-Israeli war on the party in power. Unless I'm mistaken, the Republicans didn't blame President Johnson for the war in 1967; the Dems didn't blame President Nixon for the war in 1973; nor did they blame President Reagan for the hostilities in Lebanon that occurred on his watch. Moreover, it is especially reprehensible for the Dems to be taking such a low road now, when unlike before, the U.S. is in the middle of essentially the same war as Israel -- the war on terrorism."

Weekly Standard Editor Bill Kristol seems to favor a wider war:

"While Syria and Iran are enemies of Israel, they are also enemies of the United States. We have done a poor job of standing up to them and weakening them. They are now testing us more boldly than one would have thought possible a few years ago. Weakness is provocative. We have been too weak, and have allowed ourselves to be perceived as weak.

"The right response is renewed strength--in supporting the governments of Iraq and Afghanistan, in standing with Israel, and in pursuing regime change in Syria and Iran. For that matter, we might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions--and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.