Blame, the Real Weapon of Mass Distraction

When things aren't going well, blame somebody else. It's all the rage in Washington these days to blame the Iraqis for the mess in, well, in Iraq. Some believe it's all in preparation for a new tactic, "Blame and Run."

The Financial Times reports that President Bush's "new way forward" may turn out to be "blame the Iraqis."

"... leading Republican and Democratic politicians are increasingly blaming Nouri al-Maliki's fragile coalition government for a lack of progress.

"It is a consensus that was crystallized last week by the Iraq Study Group, which called on Mr Bush to withhold US assistance from Baghdad unless it made progress on fulfilling a long list of US-imposed milestones. It is also shared by many senior officials in the Bush administration, which had already drawn up an earlier list of milestones for Mr Maliki.

'You could call it 'blame and run, ' said Zbigniew Bzrezinski, a former national security adviser now at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. 'It is based on a pervasive illusion that there is such a thing as an Iraqi government. The more we blame it for doing things it cannot do, the more impotent it will become. 'Blame and run' is self-fulfilling.'

"Strobe Talbott, head of the bipartisan Brookings Institution, agrees. In a speech last week he criticized the view that Baghdad could be pressed to make changes such as disarming the sectarian militias by threatening to withhold military, political or economic aid. The ISG report states that Baghdad must prove that it deserves future aid.

''The logic of that pressure tactic that is, why it should work with the Iraqis is not clear, since most of them want us out [of Iraq],' said Mr Talbott. 'The logic on our own side, however, is very clear indeed: having pre-emptively invaded their country, lets pre-emptively blame them for the mess we've made of it.'

It's rumoured this approach is also being considered in Ottawa. The slightly altered Harper version of it would be to blame other NATO members for turning Canada's "mission" into "mission impossible" and then "blame and run."