Billmon Finds The Pea Under The Shell

The best reaction to Bush's speech is by (courtesy of PBD) Billmon, who sees a new Bush strategy: negotiate a settlement with some of our foes - specifically Sunnis who may have only been loosely associated with Saddam's regime (now called insurgents), and not others (now called terrorists). Quoting Billmon:

If you go back and look at the old party lines (versions 1.0 and 2.0) you can quickly see that something new has been added. Heretofore, the "anti-Iraqi forces" have consisted of:

1.) Foreign Terrorists (aka "assassins")
2.) Regime Remnants (aka "dead enders")
3.) Criminal Elements (aka "thugs")

But now we have a fourth category, one with a nice neutral name that doesn't allude to hacking people's heads off or gassing your own people or hating our freedoms:

4.) Iraqi Insurgents (aka "negotiating partners.")

From there on out, the speech carefully and repeatedly distinguished between the terrorists and the insurgents, who are now -- in the fantasy world of the White House propaganda shop at least -- two unique and different populations, where before they were one and indivisible....

So, there was something new in the speech after all! A subtle but very clear shift. You never negotiate with terrorists, after all, but negotiations with insurgents is just a matter of course. We are going to negotiate our way out, likely leaving Iraq to the mercies of a very nasty bunch of people!

Indeed Juan Cole notes that already some of the Shia suspect the Americans are talking too much to the Sunnis, and maybe are planning to stab them in the back.

So remember, from now on, the operative term is now "Terrorists AND Insurgents!"