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Blinkered to the end TheStar.com - comment - Blinkered to the end

January 30, 2008

Americans can sleep peacefully tonight. The United States has “made good progress” under President George Bush’s stewardship. He said so in his State of the Union Address to Congress Monday night, his last big hurrah before he leaves office early next year. If only it were so.

This, of course, is the same Bush who insists there is “new cause for hope” in the Middle East, where the time is right for peace.

Sadly, the world is a crueller place than presidential speechwriters are apt to admit. While the Republicans in Congress dutifully cheered Bush’s speech, Republican presidential aspirants don’t dare invoke his name on the hustings. They are reaching back instead to sunny Ronald Reagan as their reference point. Little wonder why.

Six years after 9/11, Osama bin Laden is still on the loose. Blinkered to the end, Bush may insist Al Qaeda is “on the run.” But insurgents who share its rage against America continue to tie down nearly 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, where war needed to be fought, and 140,000 in Iraq, where it didn’t. U.S. taxpayers will feel the $1 trillion pain for a decade to come. This “progress” has left a nation gasping for relief.

Even by Bush’s own obtuse “axis of evil” standards, rolled out in his first State of the Union in 2002 in which he identified the axis members as Iraq, Iran and North Korea, his presidency must be judged a fiasco. While Iraq is Saddam Hussein-free, it has become an America-hostile powderkeg. North Korea remains quirky, aloof, nuclear-armed. And Iran, far from being humbled, is more brazen than ever.

Now, in the twilight of an ill-starred, blundering presidency, Bush has “the Holy Land” in his sights. Shell-shocked Americans can only wish Palestinians and Israelis good luck.