Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

Meanwhile, as certain progressives became convinced that with Rumsfeld removed chances of improvement increased, the Cheney-Bush team could make a much better case to its natural constituency along with others not necessarily opposed to the Iraq War per se, but due to the way it was being conducted.

The mainstream media with the appropriate new world order drumbeaters approached the aforementioned strategy with robust gusto.  Rumsfeld represented the tired past and the neocon team, given fresh impetus through a new face in the form of Thomas Gates along with other individuals he would bring on the scene, represented a new beginning.  

The change represented a current day instance of that familiar old cliché from the Vietnam War that neocons are afraid to use today because of that troubling linkage:  "The light is at the end of the tunnel!"

A New York Times story dealing with a classified memo that Rumsfeld submitted to the White House two days before his resignation appeared December 3, 2006 and was written by Michael R. Gordon and David S. Cloud under the headline "Rumsfeld Memo Proposed `Major Adjustment' in Iraq".  

A significant point made in the article by Gordon and Cloud was the statement, "The memo was finished one day after President Bush interviewed Robert M. Gates, the president of Texas A&M University, as a potential successor to Mr. Rumsfeld and one day before the midterm elections.  By then it was clear that the Republicans appeared likely to suffer a setback at the polls and that the administration was poised to begin reconsidering its Iraq strategy."

In the following paragraph Gordon and Cloud wrote:

"The memo provides no indication that Mr. Rumsfeld intended to leave his Pentagon post.  It is unclear whether he knew at that point that he was about to be replaced, though the White House has said that Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld had a number of conversations on the matter."

While it is likely that, as an experienced veteran of the Washington bureaucratic wars, Rumsfeld recognized which way the political winds were blowing and he was slated for imminent removal.  After considering some of the points raised in the memo it could be easily concluded that they would raise sufficient concern to bring his service to an end.

The memo could be a final effort on the part of a flustered public official who knew his days were numbered deciding to ultimately state his beliefs irrespective of White House bureaucratic correctness.

Rumsfeld's analysis needs to be studied in lieu of the position papers of the Project for the New American Century that were on display prior to the time that the Cheney-Bush Administration assumed power in January 2001.  That word that has become so familiar to students of world affairs with the ascendance of the neocons - hegemony - is very much in play in the equation.  

Why do you suppose that such a large and lavish U.S. Embassy was constructed in Baghdad in the first place?  The operative PNAC documents did not indicate that the ambitious neoconservative plans would end with Iraq.  Instead Iraq would serve as an excellent starting point and serve as a base from which to launch other aggressive initiatives with neighboring Iran very much in the overall scenario.

At a time when Cullen Murphy and other writers are using the parallel between U.S. power and potential and the Roman Empire, the new world order neocons did not welcome this point raised by Rumsfeld:

"Conduct an accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases.  We have already reduced from 110 to 55 bases.  Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007."

At another point Rumsfeld urges "Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) - go minimalist."

Have the recent columns of staunch neoconservatives such as Charles Krauthammer and William Kristol included anything close to embodying the words or tone of "go minimalist"?  

Toward the end of his memo Rumfeld penned some more troubling words for neocons embracing the doctrine of expanding hegemony:  "Set a firm withdrawal date to leave (Iraq).  Declare that with Saddam gone and Iraq a sovereign nation, the Iraqi people can govern themselves.  Tell Iran and Syria to stay out."

Rumsfeld closed his memo with what were perhaps the most troubling words of all for neoconservatives embracing expansive hegemony when he stated that the U.S. should assist in "accelerating an aggressive federalism plan" that would encompass three separate states embodying Sunni, Shia and Kurdish elements.

His last words point toward just what the neoconservative hegemony stalwarts do not want, international negotiation and emphasis:  "Try a Dayton-like process."

The Dayton process was used in Bosnia.  Such a process is far more along the lines of recent proposals by Congressman Dennis Kucinich when he urged that the United Nations become involved in Iraq and that military personnel from Arab countries replace American forces while the process is undertaken.  

The global reach of the Project for the New American Century is that of a new world order where the unelected forces of the Carlyle Group and Kissinger and Associates operate on behalf of Halliburton, Bechtel and other giants to open a wide path leading to global hegemony.

It is easy to see why the mainstream media, as it examines Rumsfeld's words for meaning, steers away from this kind of reading.  Instead it is considerably easier and less potentially damaging to label such analysis as "far out" and outside the mainstream of serious political thought.

Does anyone expect to see a 2008 presidential candidates' debate about the new world order, globalism, and all that such forces portend?  Would the dominant corporate lobbying interests allow this to happen?