Two heads are more dangerous than one

Yesterday over at Running Scared I had a post on Paul Craig Roberts commentary where he tells us that the goal of the George Bush and the neocons is the same as that of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, turmoil in the Middle east. Today Paul Krugman warns not to concentrate on the domestic sins of the Bush administration, like Social Security, but to pay attention to their insane foreign policy as well.

The campaign against Social Security is going so badly that longtime critics of President Bush, accustomed to seeing their efforts to point out flaws in administration initiatives brushed aside, are pinching themselves. But they shouldn't relax: if the past is any guide, the Bush administration will soon change the subject back to national security.

The political landscape today reminds me of the spring of 2002, after the big revelations of corporate fraud. Then as now, the administration was on the defensive, and Democrats expected to do well in midterm elections.

Then, suddenly, it was all Iraq, all the time, and Harken Energy and Halliburton vanished from the headlines.

I don't know which foreign threat the administration will start playing up this time, but Bush critics should be prepared for the shift. They must curb their natural inclination to focus almost exclusively on domestic issues, and challenge the administration on national security policy, too.

We are already seeing that "change the subject" strategy with the recent saber rattling toward Iran and Syria. I think Paul Craig Roberts has it right:

The neoconservatives' goal is the same as Osama bin Laden's - to spread instability in the Middle East. The neocons seek to foment instability in order to justify more US invasions in an insane quest to remake the Middle East in the American image. Bin Laden seeks instability in order to topple the secular rulers and recreate Islamic rule. Bin Laden does not want US troops out. He wants to suck America in deeper in order to create revolutionary insurgency throughout the Middle East.

The evil serpent of the Bush administration has two equally venomous heads. The imperialist foreign policy head and the feudalistic domestic head. We would be wise to watch both.