When the other shoes fly...

DO YOU find at least a little strange that after all of the bullets,  bombs and billions in U.S. dollars we have recklessly dispensed to pacify Iraq, the simple act of hurling shoes at President Bush has again told us that we are nowhere near creating the promised land that has been so fictionalized  by the Bush Administration?   Quite the opposite, despite the exaggerated claims of growing success in Iraq that Colin Powell is talking about so critically  these days.  You have seen the same reports of the nasty incident that I have.  And, based on the wide approval of Iraqis and throughout the Arab world of the culturally significant airborne shoes,  the disgust with U.S. presence in the Middle East has created a hero of Muntazer al-Zaidi, the journalist who staged the event.  (Contrary to some of my recent e-mails from curious readers, Zaidi is not a relative of mine.)  

We can say rather clearly that Iraq is not the world that neocon Richard Perle envisioned years ago when he confidently predicted that a big plaza in the center of Baghdad would be named for George Bush within months of the invasion.  At that moment there was plenty of Kool-Aid to go around.  But not enough these days to mollify the Iraqis whose lives in many cases are worse today than before. Look out.  If  Zaidi  is severely prosecuted it will only inflame the Arab world more.  At this late date, what in the world was Bush doing playing president  over there anyway?