Circular Reasoning
As I said yesterday, the PM’s free to make as much of an ass of himself as he pleases, but he ought to apologize when he’s been insulting, as he has to Barak Obama and the Democrats now in the majority in Congress. He has, however, committed himself to the Iraq debacle, committed Australia in the first instance to causing the problems there now and exacerbating them by “sticking by” his ally. (Unfortunately, as Tim Dunlop continues to point out, Mr. Howard’s ally isn’t the U.S., but George Bush, mistaking a personal friendship for a larger political position of mutual support.) Now Defense Minister Brendan Nelson weighs in, explaining that Howard is just standing up for Australia by committing the nation to an indefinite tour of duty in Iraq.

"Only when we get through the next six, 12 months or whatever period of time it takes will we be in a position to make any reasonable and responsible judgement about whether the United States, Britain or anyone else is in a position to withdraw."

Round and round we go, and where we stop, well, we’ll know in six months. Or twelve. Or someday long in the future. But that’s not what’s really at issue. What matters is that John Howard knows he made a mistake joining the “Coalition of the Willing”, that Iraq was a disaster from the start, but that more and more of his constituents have also reached that conclusion and will blame him and the Liberals at the next election. Mr. Howard’s sounding increasingly like Donald Duck with a limp.

(Oh, and in case anyone was wondering how the Howard government’s domestic policies have been working out, ”WorkChoices” is putting the bite on women, hard, as well as harming employment growth and productivity.)