Pouring gasoline on the fire

In what universe does anyone think it's a good idea to send Dick Cheney to the Middle East on a diplomatic mission? Yet that's exactly what's coming.

Jeffrey Feldman:

If the Bush administration was serious about saving lives, building U.S. credibility in the world, involving regional allies, and ending the Iraq occupation -- then they would put Dick Cheney back in his hidden location, lock the door from the outside and throw away the key.

Cheney should not be allowed anywhere near Middle East diplomacy. Any diplomatic effort that involves Dick Cheney will result in one thing and one thing only: more violence, more failure, more death.

An Icon of Violence
Of all the people in the world, today, there is not a single person who symbolizes the arrogance, violence and deceit of the Bush era more than Vice President Dick Cheney.

More than just a failed leader, Cheney has become an icon of violence -- a man whose name and face are synonymous with the an authoritarian view of politics rooted in the ignorant idea that unilateral force can sow everlasting peace.

There have been other icons of violence in history, but Cheney is the most dominant in today's world. Even more than Bush, who has become a symbol of a failed Machiavellian prince, Cheney iconic status is built on his soulless bureaucratic tenor, his relentless commitment to long-since-debunked propaganda, and his constant repetition of doomsday scenarios predicting nuclear Holocaust. Al this means that Cheney did not happen up on his iconic status by chance. He created it himself.

Is there anyone in America -- anyone in the world -- who does not know this about Dick Cheney? No. We all know it. Even in the vile and twisted tangle of the Bush White House, they all know what Cheney symbolizes in the world. They all know that no person is more hated, more distrusted than Dick Cheney. They all know that the world is waiting -- hoping -- not for Dick Cheney to take on a greater role in the mess of the Iraq occupation, but for Dick Cheney to just go away. Far, far away.

Despite all this, next week the White House will send the icon of violence on a diplomatic mission to the Middle East -- ostensibly, in Dana Perino's words, to "follow-up" on the diplomacy of the recent meetings in Sharm el Sheikh.

What a ridiculous idea. What a foolish idea.

Dick Cheney's visit to the Middle East will do to that region what saltwater does to an open wound, what gasoline does to an open flame. Cheney's visit will bring more pain, more flames, more bombs, more lost limbs, more piles of corpses, more puddles of blood, more destroyed Iraqi hopes, more destroyed U.S. military families.

Cheney's visit will send diplomatic efforts backwards, not forwards. It will destroy alliances, not build them.

The first step to ending the mess in Iraq is not to give Cheney a greater role, but to strip him of any role whatsoever.

Dick Cheney is like some kind of succubus who feeds on death. A man whose ticker ought to give out any second seems somehow to be made stronger the more death he can engender. It remains to be seen whether the damage done to America's standing in the world can ever be healed, even by the most skilled diplomats. To send Dick Cheney on a diplomatic mission is to damage our standing beyond all repair.

But given the Republican party's prospects in 2008 at this point, perhaps that's Cheney's real agenda -- to make damn sure to piss off everyone else in the world who isn't already pissed off at us so that no one of the other party, not even someone who makes Bill Clinton Secretary of State, can repair the damage.

(h/t: Cernig)