Bush, Maliki, and the Midterms

What is desperately needed out of the White House is a clear statement of our objectives in Iraq, a plan that can achieve them, and a timetable for withdrawal of American troops. In the last week the Bush Administration has been making noises that might be mistaken for a movement in that direction. But what I see is an exercise in blame-shifting, not course-correction. Rather than articulating its goals and laying out a plan to achieve them, the Bush Administration has decided to impose a timetable on the Iraqi government, as if it is responsible for our quagmire. Rhetorically, this is the easy way out for Republicans - the voters want a timetable? Ok, this is a timetable, just not one that applies to us. They want an acknowledgement of failures? Ok, we acknowledge that the Iraqi government is really screwing this up. This may temporarily stop the Administration's hemmorhaging in the polls, but the impact on the ground doesn't look to be too impressive. The New York Times reports:

The defiant [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki also slammed the top U.S. military and diplomatic representatives in Iraq for saying his government needed to set a timetable to curb violence in the country. At a news conference Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said al-Maliki had agreed.

''I affirm that this government represents the will of the people and no one has the right to impose a timetable on it,'' al-Maliki said at a news conference.

The prime minister dismissed U.S. talk of timelines as driven by the upcoming midterm elections in the United States. ''I am positive that this is not the official policy of the American government but rather a result of the ongoing election campaign. And that does not concern us much,'' he said.

Incompetent, arrogant, cowardly - what's the best word to describe the Bush Administration's Iraq policy?