Off the table.

Things heated up this week in our serial overseas conflicts, to be sure. As of this writing, Iran is still holding some British soldiers, and there appear to be some flourishes of diplomatic activity in and amongst the public posturing. Though Bush and friends (including the ever-reliable Joe Lieberman, peace be upon him) engaged in some highly qualified pre-gloating over the "progress" being seen in Iraq as a result of the "surge", people are still dying by the score over there. As Juan Cole points out, figures from the Iraqi government on February casualties ran somewhere around 61 deaths per day - that's just slightly fewer than in January. Progress, Lieberman style! (What have you got for the health care crisis, Joe?) It makes you wonder if any U.S. politician really has any idea what a statistic like 60 deaths a day means in human terms.

As a consequence of this cock-brained optimism, the U.S. is alienating the few corruptible friends it has in the Arab world. One by one, Gulf states are making it known that they won't play any role in an invasion of Iran. Even Saudi Arabia - second only to Texas in the Bush family's desiccated heart - took the opportunity of this week's Arab summit to call the American occupation of Iraq "Illegitimate." Mildly put, but accurate, at least, and that was not the Saudi king's only criticism of U.S. policy in the region. There were also a few words about that other occupation... the one that turns 40 this year. Abdullah reintroduced the Saudi plan for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, based upon Israel's withdrawal to its 1967 borders. Basically the same formula that's been on the table since, well, 1967, and the basis of a longstanding international consensus on the question from which only the U.S. and Israel have consistently dissented. Bush must have seen this as a bit of a poke in the eye, particularly now that he's staggering around, punch drunk.

Not to worry - the mainstream media, including the wildly left-radical (note: irony) NPR, have identified this solution as a non-starter, nothing new, off the table. Sure it is - because it's the only plan that has a prayer of working. Still, it helped make for kind of a bad week for Dubya... not that he knows what a bad week really looks like. That takes being on the receiving end of his foreign policy, or being one of the poor sods tasked with carrying it out. Like most of us, Bush is pretty far removed from the experience of a National Guard member or reservist sent back on his/her third or fourth tour of duty; soldiers who've been wounded in Iraq, then denied proper care back home, discharged for "personality disorders" when they've obviously got PTSD and even serious physical injuries, some even having to pay back part of their signing bonus. Now, that's a bad week.

All I can tell you young folks out there is - no matter how much they promise you, how bad the job market looks, how sorry your money situation is - listen to what Marvin tells you. Don't. Sign. Up.

luv u,

jp