Plan C in Iraq

Scene: Oval Office, just prior to Bush's vacation departure.

Present with George W. Bush are the President's awesome Brain Trust, including V.P. Dick Cheney; Chief of Staff Josh "Hands" Bolten; Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice; Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Richard Perle, French wine connoisseur and Emissary from the Undead; and, from the press, William Kristol, and David Brooks of The New York Times, for some reason.

Bush: Before I taken off, I was thinking we should go through thinking through the extent of the Iraqi situation and sort of revisit some of our opportunities.

Cheney: (growling amicably) Options, sir?

Bush: Right. To refigure what roads may be open now, or closed, depending on events on the ground.

Kristol: Friedman in the Times has some ideas, one is to convene a kind of Kosovo summit and invite everyone and talk about it some more, and then his second idea is to partition Iraq into three parts, Sunni, Shia and the Kurds.

Bush: Who are the Kurds?

Kristol: Up north.

Brooks: What's so special about Friedman? I've done more to support your ideas, Mr. President.(pleadingly) Dick - anything to say?

Cheney: (growling reassuringly) David has been there for you, Mr. President.

Rumsfeld: Do we have problems in Iraq? Sure. Is it a civil war? Not in a classical sense. Are the streets of Baghdad littered every morning with people whose brains have been drilled out with Black&Decker tools? Of course. Is this normal? Probably not.

Rice: My own preference is for the status quo ante.

Rumsfeld: Have we heard that before? Sure. Do we watch the talk shows? Always. Are you the teacher's pet? What do you think.

Bolten: I've been thinking along the lines of Condi's comment. We do have some developing problems in the region.

Bush: No shit, Sherlock.

Cheney: (growling dyspeptically) One place where we're taking heat is that midwifing a Shiite government in Iraq has strengthened Iran's hand in the region.

Bolten: Hand?

Rumsfeld: (ignoring Bolten) Tell me about it, Tubby. Does Iran like having a Shia theocracy next door? You bet. Are they sending troops and money into the south of Iraq? All the time. Are those Shia militias and phony police killing our soldiers? Smell the coffee. Is this situation fucked up beyond all recognition? Bingo, first try.

Rice: Iraq did act as a cordon sanitaire against Iranian aggression and expansionism in the region, a firewall to deter the Persian ambitions...

Bush: (sniggering, his mouth full of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich) A sanitary what? Please, Condi, there are ladies present.

Kristol: Regrettably, this revitalization of Iran has redounded to the disadvantage of Israel, since Iran feels unimpeded in its supply of Hezbollah with missiles and funding, leading to...

Bush: (pulling a bolus of half-chewed sandwich from his mouth and placing it on the desk) Rebounds? Who ya talking about now, Chandelier, the basketball player Yo-Yo Ma?

Perle: (in sepulchral tones, the shadows beneath his eyes darkening to a deep ebony, as the light in the room fades slightly as he murmurs hypnotically) It is of the essence to remonstrate consistently with existing monarchies in the region against such revanchist aspirations, lest a Persian suzerainty arise anew in a hegemonic...

Rumsfeld: Do you talk like an Oxford don on Quaaludes? I'll say.

Cheney: (growling nostalgically) You know, there was a time when Iraq was sort of that bulwark I think you're talking about, in the middle of all those hundred dollar words.

Bush: Bull works?

Cheney: (growling obliviously ) There are ways to implement...

Rice: A kind of status quo ante...

Bolten: Because while we talked about "dead or alive" as usual, fortunately he's still alive. And Aziz is still on the scene.

Rice: We're just missing Qusay and Uday, or Quday and Usay. Whatever.

Rumsfeld: Are they a big loss? No. Glad they're not among the living? You bet.

Cheney: (growling more intensely) So we've still got Saddam as a fallback.

Kristol: He was the one Iraqi who knew how to hold that mess together. Now he could run an army!

Rumsfeld: Are you a horse's ass, Bill? Sure thing. Another civilian who thinks it's all so easy from an armchair? I'd lay a bet. Am I the guy in that picture with Saddam 20 years ago and not you? Seems to me.

Bush: (choking up milk and hocking a loogie on the carpet): This guy Maliki's a floater.

Cheney: (growling ecstatically) This has great promise, a new opening.

Rice: Historically, this kind of reversion...

Perle: (lights in Oval Office are temporarily extinguished until auxiliary power kicks in) Reversion is not technically le mot juste. You are referring actually to the concept of restoration, as occurred after the French Revolution and Napoleonic accession, followed by...

Rumsfeld: Are you a pompous ass sucking off the public tit? Slam dunk. Do we get tired of your kind of nosing in? That just might be.

Cheney: (growling ruminatively) Have we talked to Rove about this? Putting Saddam back in power will require a hell of a lot of public relations finesse. You remember, regime change, torture rooms...

Bolten: (raising own hand, photographing it, then speaking) If I could suggest something. Abu Ghraib offers another opening on that. Suppose we tell the American people that U.S. oversight will ensure that Saddam's torture of his "own people" will not exceed the kind and extent already practiced by the CIA and military in Iraq.

Kristol: We've set a new standard, in other words!

Perle: (moaning shriek is heard in the far catacombs of the White House) Death squads will operate according to American protocols.

Cheney: (growling collegially) Good addendum, Dick.

Perle: Thanks, Dick.

Bush: (snorting amber foam from his Diet Coke) If you Dicks are done congratulating each other, when do we hit the decks with this street news?

Bolten: A phased implementation would be best, immediately after breaking Saddam out of jail.

Rice: Mussolini, as you'll recall, was spirited away from a Roman prison in 1943 and installed near Lake Maggiore in the Salo Government, where he...

Rumsfeld: Was part of the Fascist Restoration? We've heard it. Another status quo ante? How many more, I wonder. Are we about done here? I think so.

Brooks: Can I assume that you won't tell Friedman or (gulping) Dowd about this till I have a chance to run it as Plan C? Can you see the look on their faces when I scoop this?

Bush: Somebody throw Brooks another Milk-Bone. I've got a copter to catch and brush to clear.