Bush's Game Plan

A reader writes:

I'm no shrink but it seems to me that W will stick to his guns in Iraq for one simple reason: When things finally change upon his retirement (and, as you know better than I, it's going to get rough for a while when it does) he can say "if they'd just continued my policy everything would have been OK. They changed it, and now you've got a disaster. I told you so."

I'll rant, and state the obvious. He's a cosseted son-of-the-establishment who failed all the way up to presidency. Just as in everything that's come before in his life his Dad and his Dads' buds are going to bail him out. Problem this time is that he's president. He has the wherewithal - and an enabler in substitute father-figure Cheney - to put them off. It's only two years. It'll be a disaster of Iraq, and for us, but he'll go into his dotage thinking he's a success.

And that's all he cares about. He already said it's going to be someone else's problem.

If this is an accurate assessment of the president's motives, he really is a danger to the republic and a disgrace to his office. But I suspect that he has already also rationalized it in his head as the statesmanlike option. He's blind even to his own pride.

(Photo from yesterday in Kirkuk by Marwan Ibrahim for AFP/Getty.)