Times

What's really going on?

The Saudi ambassador to the U.S. suddenly ups and quits:

The resignation of Prince Turki, a former Saudi intelligence chief and a son of the late King Faisal, was supposed to be formally announced Monday, officials said, but that had not happened by late Tuesday.

"They’re keeping us very puzzled," a Saudi official said. Prince Turki’s resignation was first reported Monday in The Washington Post.

The same article uncovers the Saudi position that if the U.S. pulls out, they may very well back the Sunni side, which the Bush Administration has been hinting they will go whole hog against by backing the Shiite majority.

And Dick Cheney had just been summoned to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago for some sort of talking to.

Coincidence?

And is it also a coincidence that El Presidente, on some sort of Rose Garden "listening tour," has decided to wait until 2007 to address America with whatever "new direction" he finally will have come to for the Iraq debacle?

American officials regard security in Baghdad as essential to political and economic stability, but there continues to be debate between those who support giving Iraqis the lead in combating sectarian violence and those who do not, and those who support a large surge of forces in Baghdad and those who do not.

Glad the Bush Administration is so together.

Meanwhile Newsweek tallies 25,000 American soldiers dead or wounded, holy cow, and a truck bomb in Iraq kills 70 people in a crowd lured together by the promise of work. Ho-hum, another day at the Baghdad office for El Presidente and crony crew.

Let's face it, whatever Bush announces will be lies and mistakes. So the Decider has "decided not to decide" just yet. We all know what it is going to be, per Unqualified Offerings blog:

The pattern has always been:

1. Declare that we must stay in Iraq to prevent some Bad Thing from happening.

2. Bad Thing happens anyway.

3. Declare that we must stay in Iraq to prevent some Worse Thing from happening.

4. Worse Thing happens anyway.

5. Reiterate sequence.

The problem isn't the goals (ill-defined) or the strategy (a disaster from inception, if ever coherent).

The problem is The Man.

Until he and Vice Presidente Richard Cheney are removed from office, in the next Presidential election or by impeachment/resignation, until double-downers like John McCain are shut out of the White House, until the adults get the reins of the most powerful Administration apparatus in the world, we are all doomed to a Groundhog Day of numbingly repetitive bad, loser times.