"To be blunt, is there a Bush-Sharon Grand Strategy for a Middle East where all resistance to U. hegemony is broken and all opposition to Israel's occupation of Arab land ends?- Patrick Buchanan asks in his commentary Is George W. Bush an Imperialist? "Though Iraq does not threaten us,"" he continues, "has not attacked us, cannot defeat us, and does not want war with us, the United States is about to invade and occupy that country."" Well, both the invasion and the occupation are underway. Elements of the Third Infantry Division now sit nearer than fifty miles from Baghdad. Iraq has followed Afghanistan on to the growing list of countries that the U.S. occupies or has occupied. Buchanan warned that if the United States chose to enter Iraq by force and occupy that land, the action will constitute the " first purely imperial war in our history, a war launched to reshape the domestic politics and foreign policy of another nation to conform to our own."" He cautions Iraq will become a "vassal state."" Buchanan is nave to assert that such restructuring and reshaping of the "domestic politics and foreign policy of another nation to conform to our own- is a wholly novel experience for the U.S. However, he raises a valid question. Is George W. Bush an Imperialist? And, if so, what might such a label presage?.
The last cells of Elite Republican Guard have been "cleaned up- in Umm Qasr (AFP). Basra, Iraq's second largest city is surrounded and fierce exchanges of artillery between Republican Guard and British Forces reinforced by U.S. strike jets are underway (AP). In addition, fiercer ground warfare in Iraq persists. "A column of Abrams tanks and two columns of amphibious assault vehicles" have moved into strategic locations around the city of Nasiriyah (AFP). The tactical occupation of Iraq is underway. When the combat subsides, those cities will become territory governed by the U.S. Large military encampments have already been established.