Bush Awaits

During one of his several dozen vacations, George Bush was apparently reading Camus' The Stranger. That was funny, not just because it meant Bush and Nilu shared the honour of being the last 2 guys in the free world to discover Camus, but also because the book is about a white guy killing an Arab without any reason.

So as much as I await the release of the movie 300, based on Frank Miller's graphic novel about the Battle of Thermopylae, I know that my eagerness can not be a patch on that of George Bush's. A movie about 300 white guys slaughtering Persian hordes led by a delusional megalomaniac? A movie in which the Persian King's "immortal" personal guards (much like the Iranian Quds revolutionary guard) get their asses handed to them?

Get the popcorn, Condi.

Sit Tight

Columnists have bled their pens dry comparing the current US-Iran impasse to the days preceding WW1 when a small spark, that of the Archduke's assassination, set off the fire.

Such sparks can work only when both sides are just itching to have a go at each other. In this case, it would certainly seem so. The Bush government, which seemed more hawkish in Rumsfeld's days, now seems more mawkish in Gates' days in all matters related to Iran. Ahmedinejad himself is rattling sabres like a modern day Zorro. He plans to boast about their nuclear capabilities later this week. And he is doing everything to provoke the US, emboldened after the Iraq mess about his country's chances. And now this has happened.

For all we know, this could be an Iranian ploy to fabricate an excuse for doing something retaliatory.

Ahmedinejad seems to have read his hand very shrewdly. There are risks, but the game is in his favour. He knows that the Iraq war has become very unpopular. He knows that the Democratic aspirants for '08 all want to get out of Iraq. And he knows that after the Congress results, it is unlikely that Republicans will win in '08. In fact if he keeps Iraq burning for the next couple of years and more soldiers die, the war will become even more unpopular, and Bush's ratings will plummet even further. He is betting on political considerations ensuring that America will not actually attack, at least not with full force.

But he needs to be careful he does not overplay this hand and not crank it up too high. Another 9/11 could change the political compulsions in the US overnight.

The State of the Union Address Party

A couple of days back, I was invited to a State of the Union Address Party. As far as party names go, I don't think it can get more unenticing. Maybe a Balancing the Budget Party or File Your Tax Returns Party could out-unshine the name. So frankly, I wasn't expecting much from it. Just a dozen or so American college students listening to Bush's speech.

The evnt however was fantastic. Sure enough, there was a TV tuned to C-Span. Sure enough there were a dozen or so American college students. But there was also a board on top of the TV. It listed some words like - freedom, Iraq, terrorism, Baghdad, Al Qaeda, nukular, half-an-ovation etc. Next to them was written "Take One Swig". And there were some more rarer words, next to which was written "Take Two Swigs". And needless to say, there was copious amounts of alcohol.

As you can guess, we were all pretty stinko by the time the speech ended and Sen. Jim Webb felt compelled to list his family's military record for a reason we weren't sure of when drunk, and have not been able to figure out even sober.

You folks in India have to play this game tomorrow during Manmohan's Republic Day Speech.