Marching Orders

George W Bush has flown into London to enjoy a leg-hump from the Vicar of Downing Street and join the Glorious Successor in a bit of mutual limping and quacking. For instance, now that Israel and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and Iran has been informed in no uncertain terms that it can ill afford to do without them, George plans to use his standing in the world to "head off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East". George is also giving Gordon his orders as regards bringing out the troops from Iraq. The orders are, of course, that it isn't going to happen: "I am confident that he, like me, will listen to our commanders", such as Dick Cheney and the good folks at Halliburton, "to make sure that the sacrifices that have gone forward won't be unravelled by draw-downs that may not be warranted at this point in time." Since the British government doesn't appear to mind how many sacrifices it has pushed forward, the extent to which they may be unravelled by unwarranted down-drawings could be hard to assess; fortunately George has some perspectivisation to provide. Although the casualties in Iraq have been serious enough to cause George personal pain, Iraqis are now living in a "free society" with a government elected under the auspices of a coalition that has shared values with, among others, Pinochet's Chile, Suharto's Indonesia, Somoza's Nicaragua and the House of Saud. Also, American and British troops are not "intentionally killing innocent people"; there has just been a lot of collateral damage. The idea that the Glorious Successor might imperil this glorious success by downdrawing his sacrifices and leaving a mere hundred and fifty thousand American troops to finish the job all on their ownsome - well, it just don't seem right. Still, Gordon has demonstrated his new, progressive agenda by "calling a voter who opposed the war and apologising 'for what happened to the people of Iraq'"; so there is no particular reason why he should risk actually doing anything about it.