COLUMN: Down in the Rabbit Hole

By Tobin Barnes
Iraq, strangely enough, is like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

Think about it.

It just keeps getting “curiouser and curiouser.”

Ever since we tumbled down that rabbit hole—what a tumble, what a hole—things have only become weirder by the month—a mystifying trip into fantasy land. And that’s since we got rid of the Mad Hatter.

Course, things were decidedly pretty strange well before that, even back in those days when the mission was supposedly accomplished.

Chasing the White Rabbit of 9/11 perpetrators (or was it weapons of mass destruction?) has ended up being more like the Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit” song—a psychedelic pill trip—than the Neo-con dream scheme envisioned by the Bush Administration.

Or was the White Rabbit mirage really about bringing stability to a maddeningly volatile region? Or, wait, was the White Rabbit actually about the spontaneous bursting forth of democracy from a newly inspired Iraq to other countries in that benighted neighborhood?

Figuring out the identity of the White Rabbit is like the pills making you bigger, then smaller, then....

You get confused, man!

The rationale du jour seems to be this one:

Staying, admittedly, isn’t all that great, but it’s a heck of a lot better than the alternative.

Problem is that in Wonderland “staying” can seem like forever, and fewer Americans are looking for that kind of a trip.

Dear sweet Alice, of course, is the American citizenry, continually surprised and stupified by all the shenanigans, while president Bush is the Cheshire Cat perched up in the tree. Like the cat, he comes and goes, appears and disappears. When you ask him questions, you get information and a grin but no satisfying answers.

Pretty soon, he’s going to disappear for good.

Not sure we’ve got any Queen of Hearts in this cast. Condoleeza Rice isn’t nearly that assertive.

On the other hand, we’ve had our share of Tweedledums and Tweedledees at Mad Tea Parties.

And the surrealism continues to this day.

The plans to de-surge the surge have evidently been put on the back burner.

Not only that, “The Champagne bottle,” General David Petraeus told Senator Evan Bayh in a recent committee hearing, “has been pushed to the back of the refrigerator.”

The kitchen staff’s evidently out to lunch.

Now I don’t know much, if anything, about champagne. Like how well it ages and all that stuff.

But I do know about the back of a refrigerator. It’s not a good place for anything to get pushed to. Things get lost and ugly back there. Stuff can turn into a horror show. And when you finally retrieve those things, you very well might be in for a shock.

So I’m a little nervous about that champagne.

After listening to Petraeus and Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, Senator Bayh from Indiana summed up the Dada nature of the current plan for our future in Iraq: “We’ll know when we get there, and we don’t know when we’re going to get there.”

Sounds like something Alice would have said.

And the Cheshire Cat would have agreed.