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The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
The machinery of state decision-making is rarely exposed to public scrutiny. The cover of representative government is a scrupulously maintained fiction concealing the nuts-and-bolts of real statecraft. Normally, politicians and their accomplices in the media can keep the illusion of representative government intact; avoiding the embarrassing implication that the current order is really upheld by the decision-making of elites. It's only when a major rift appears between the members of the ruling class that we have the opportunity to marvel at the moving parts of the imperial apparatus.

The deteriorating situation in Iraq has precipitated this very scenario. The rift we allude to, has, in fact, developed into a yawning chasm; pitting one faction of conservative elder statesmen against their antecedents in the Bush administration. This battle of the giants can be expected to grow exponentially as the principle characters clash over the future of the Iraq occupation.

On the one hand, we have perhaps the most widely respected (conservative) policy experts alive today, advising the administration to withdraw from Iraq. Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft and James Baker have joined the ranks of anti-war Leftists in calling for an immediate withdrawal of all American troops. They have noted the failed attempts by the Bush administration to establish even minimal security or to achieve the overall objectives of the invasion. With Iraq tilting precipitously towards civil war, and with America's prestige irreparably damaged, their protestations should be regarded as an appeal for a return to political sanity.

Clearly these staunch supporters of American supremacy would never accept such a humbling defeat if there was even the remotest possibility of success. This gives us some idea of the extent to which the media has been concealing the crucial details of the disaster in Iraq from the public. Even those who are most likely to benefit the most from regional domination are jumping-off the sinking ship-of-state....