Let’s parse W’s speech last night. I watched it, against my better judgment, and he looked as ignorant and goofy as usual, hands planted flat on the desk, eyes wide, straining with every muscle to avoid smirking. And as usual, from the cadence of his remarks, it was easy to tell that he didn’t have the slightest real knowledge of what he was talking about. So as always, criticizing a Bush speech really means criticizing his speechwriters and his sorry ability to convey their meaning. Let’s do it anyway.

First, W. once again exercised his typical fallacy of composition, first noting that the enemy in Iraq is a combination of Saddamists (i.e., the Baath party) and so-called “foreign terrorists” (i.e., Zarqawists):

Since the removal of Saddam, this war, like other wars in our history, has been difficult. The mission of American troops in urban raids and desert patrols, fighting Saddam loyalists and foreign terrorists, has brought danger and suffering and loss. This loss has caused sorrow for our whole nation -- and it has led some to ask if we are creating more problems than we're solving.

That is an important question, and the answer depends on your view of the war on terror. If you think the terrorists would become peaceful if only America would stop provoking them, then it might make sense to leave them alone.

So, here Bush argues a central point, that the enemy will not “become peaceful” if we “leave them alone.” That may be true of the Al Qaeda types, but in fact the Iraqi nationalists and Baathists only want us out of Iraq—after which they most likely will become peaceful—or at least what passes for peaceful in a post-war, shattered state filled with militias.

Then W. gets to his central scare tactic, that we are fighting a menace in Iraq that wants global domination and will attack us even at home:

This is not the threat I see. I see a global terrorist movement that exploits Islam in the service of radical political aims -- a vision in which books are burned, and women are oppressed, and all dissent is crushed. Terrorist operatives conduct their campaign of murder with a set of declared and specific goals -- to de-moralize free nations, to drive us out of the Middle East, to spread an empire of fear across that region, and to wage a perpetual war against America and our friends. These terrorists view the world as a giant battlefield -- and they seek to attack us wherever they can. …

The terrorists do not merely object to American actions in Iraq and elsewhere, they object to our deepest values and our way of life. And if we were not fighting them in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Southeast Asia, and in other places, the terrorists would not be peaceful citizens, they would be on the offense, and headed our way.

Where to begin? First, the only radical Islamists burning books and oppressing women in Iraq are the Shiite fundamentalist parties, backed by Iran, whose power is being supported by the U.S. armed forces. Second, the supposed enemy in Iraq is not a “global terrorist movement” but an indigenous, nationalist resistance that wants nothing more than the departure of U.S. troops. The spectre of “an empire of fear across the region” is a wildly exaggerated threat that exists only in Bush’s fevered imagination. In fact, if we began to withdraw from Iraq, one of our best allies in exterminating the remnants of Al Qaeda would be the Iraqi Baathists. And their operations to clean up Al Qaeda in Iraq would not be pretty.

I also want to speak to those of you who did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq: I have heard your disagreement, and I know how deeply it is felt. Yet now there are only two options before our country -- victory or defeat. And the need for victory is larger than any president or political party, because the security of our people is in the balance. I don't expect you to support everything I do, but tonight I have a request: Do not give in to despair, and do not give up on this fight for freedom.

The only two options are “victory or defeat”? Hopefully, that is not true, because victory in Iraq is inconceivable, unless we plan to stay and fight for decades. There is, in fact, a wide spectrum of other options, from immediate withdrawal to phased withdrawal to a negotiated ceasefire with the resistance to the internationalization of the conflict through the UN, the Arab League, and other interested parties. By victory, it is clear that Bush means a victory that preserves, somehow, the remaining shred of U.S. credibility worldwide. In his speech, Bush raised the image of the world laughing at the United States. If we left Iraq, he said:

We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip.

But no one, except Bush administration die-hards, believe that America has any word left to keep. By invading Iraq illegally and then bungling the occupation, Bush has utterly destroyed American credibility overseas. Our allies fear us, the nations of the Middle East are horrified at what Iraq has become. And if any Middle East tyrants are laughing, it’s the ones in Iran, who day by day are taking over Iraq.