OBSERVE, THEN WRITE:

A Deliberate Debacle (PAUL KRUGMAN, 12/12/03, NY Times)

These are tough times for the architects of the "Bush doctrine" of unilateralism and preventive war. Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their fellow Project for a New American Century alumni viewed Iraq as a pilot project, one that would validate their views and clear the way for further regime changes. (Hence Mr. Wolfowitz's line about "future efforts.")

Instead, the venture has turned sour — and many insiders see Mr. Baker's mission as part of an effort by veterans of the first Bush administration to extricate George W. Bush from the hard-liners' clutches. If the mission collapses amid acrimony over contracts, that's a good thing from the hard-liners' point of view.

Bear in mind that there is plenty of evidence of policy freebooting by administration hawks, such as the clandestine meetings last summer between Pentagon officials working for Douglas Feith, under secretary of defense for policy and planning — and a key player in the misrepresentation of the Iraqi threat — and Iranians of dubious repute. Remember also that blowups by the hard-liners, just when the conciliators seem to be getting somewhere, have been a pattern.

There was a striking example in August. It seemed that Colin Powell had finally convinced President Bush that if we aren't planning a war with North Korea, it makes sense to negotiate. But then John Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control, whose role is more accurately described as "the neocons' man at State," gave a speech about Kim Jong Il, declaring: "To give in to his extortionist demands would only encourage him and, perhaps more ominously, other would-be tyrants."

It's amazing that Mr. Krugman has expended so much ink and pulp on President Bush without learning anything about him. Consider the premise of the above, that the President wants to placate France and Germany and get them their money from Iraq, that he wants to cut a deal with Kim Jong-il, and that he no longer wants to pursue regime change, but that "hard-liners" oppose him. Today Jacques Chretien, who said some unflattering things about the Elder Mr. Bush over a decade ago, leaves office without ever having been invited to the Bush White House, but Mr. Krugman thinks this is a President who forgives and forgets?

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 12, 2003 12:02 PM