The Chimp in a China shop

In a recent post, Fixer brought up the idea of "it's time for Nixon to go to China" as a metaphor for what might help in the Middle East. I ran across pretty much that same phrase in a post at HuffPo by Cenk Uygur entitled "How George Bush Can Rescue His Presidency". Since I figured there's about as much chance of that happening as there is that I'll need my ski parka and longjohns when I go to my final reward, I got kinda fascinated and read it. Actually, I figured the guy was smokin' some really good shit and I was hopin' maybe he'd say where he got it! He didn't. Drat.

Just as an aside, I didn't know who this Uygur guy was, but I've been reading quite a bit of his stuff lately and I like it, so I read his bio. He's been described as "Part Howard Stern, Part Howard Dean". Heh. Sounds OK to me.

Imagine what would happen if George Bush brokered a real peace deal in the Middle East. I know it seems absurd and I know there's no way he's going to do that while holding on to the ridiculous "bomb our way to democracy" and "first strikes rock" doctrines. But what if Nixon went to China?

What if Condoleezza Rice won the internal turf battles and convinced George Bush that he would have a real legacy if he converted all of his tough talk into leverage needed to actually strike a deal with the Iranians. A deal that would stabilize Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and, most importantly, Israel and Palestine.

Would he have to make concessions? Absolutely. Would he get everything he wants in the deal? No way. Would the neocons be furious and send Dick Cheney to yell at the president? Of course. But if he was willing to stomach all that, he could come out with a historic peace deal.

Here's the outline of the deal:

Here he outlines the deal.

You have to wonder why we've never tried to empower the moderates and alienate the extremists in the Middle East before. It would seem to be far better strategy than doing the opposite through shocking (and awing) bombing campaigns.

If we just spent half the money we would normally spend occupying Iraq for the next ten years on investments in Middle Eastern infrastructure, we would be the most popular country in the Arab world. Give everyone in the Middle East an internet connection and they'll be wearing jeans rather than a burqa in less time than you could say Paris Hilton.

Nothing I've stated is undoable. In fact, it can be argued that George W. Bush is uniquely situated to make this happen. Other US administrations might not be able to pull this off because our Middle Eastern negotiating partners might not believe the alternative to peace is so bad. But under Bush, they have to realize he's crazy enough to start a war so calamitous that it could bring down all their governments.

Do I think he's going to do it? Of course not! I don't think he has it in him. He is not that grand and he is not that wise. So, instead it will be a presidency that will be remembered for gross incompetence, enormous tactical errors and historic deceptions. But it's not like he didn't have a chance to turn all of that around, even this late in the game.

What separates George Bush from all other bad presidents is not his ability to get himself in a hole, but his fervent insistence on digging in further. It's not easy to be the worst president of all time. You really have to work at it.

And it's hard work, too. The Chimp's told us so himself. Go read the rest.