Thursday, September 14, 2006
James Baker & Stuff...
Outside of Baker's treacherous machinations during the 2000 presidential election, Howling Latina has always had a soft spot in her howling heart for former chief of staff, treasury secretary and secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan and Bush family consigliere.
He was one of the key players in saving Ronald Reagan's presidency.
In a must-read article in Texas Monthly, Baker talks about his super-duper secret work in trying to figure a way out of Iraq.
When asked about weighing American credibility in the world against the loss of American lives, Baker answers:
[I]f we were to just say, “We're out of here.” Even though it's something we need to find a way out of, the worst thing in the world we could do would be to pick up all our marbles and go home, because then we will trigger, without a doubt, a huge civil war. And every one of the regional actors—the Iranians and everybody else—will come in and do their thing.But what to do, what to do??? We're in dire straits, no doubt about it, thanks to Junior.
When asked about Iran, Iraq, and terrorism, Baker said:
[T]he idea that somehow the United States or the West was responsible for the rise of terrorism and what happened on 9/11 is ludicrous. Let me just remind you that in 1986, at the economic summit in Tokyo, the number one political issue on the agenda was the threat represented by terrorism.You hear that Dubya? How about you, George 'Me-Too' Allen?!?
[...]
Having said all of that, I would like to see us have a bit more hands-on engagement in trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. That's where we made significant progress before, when we got Syria to change 25 years of policy and recognize Israel by sitting down across the table and negotiating peace. We're at the point now where we don't talk to Syria. We don't talk to Iran. We don't talk to Hezbollah and Hamas because they're terrorist organizations. When we did our work with Syria, they were on our list of state sponsors of terror. My point is, you don't talk to your friends; you talk to your enemies.
Oh, and Baker also admitted that he never once pegged Bush as presidential material. Nope. Everyone thought that if any Bush family member would also become president, it would be Jeb.
Hmmm, after Bush totally screwed up the entire world, Howling Latina can't understand how his presidential timbre went undetected....
// posted by Howling Latina @ 1:50 AM 
