From Iraq "Quagmire" To Jeb In '08?

Can President Bush turn the media-promulgated scenario of "quagmire" in Iraq to his advantage, so much so that his brother, Jeb, can win the presidency in 2008? Spengler makes that case:

A year is a lifetime in US politics. After the first Iraq war, George Bush pere ran a 90% approval rating and appeared unbeatable, yet beaten he was two years later by the obscure governor of Arkansas, an unimaginable result in 1990. Bush fils suffered an even more extreme turnabout of fortune. Under the circumstances, I do not think it would be very difficult for Bush to recover. He must make clear to the chastening public that he has learned his lesson. He well might become so popular as to make his brother the logical successor. It will not hurt Jeb Bush, either, that he is married to a Mexican and speaks fluent Spanish.

Spengler postulates that the US will have to ally itself with the Russians and the Chinese, which he claims shouldn't be too hard to do. All we need to do is convince them that they stand more to gain by aligning with us rather than with Iran since Iran will collapse in a matter of decades:

There is no point negotiating with the present regime in Teheran, which knows better than outsiders that it has barely a decade to stake its imperial claim in the region before economic and demographic factors push it into inevitable decline. With President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who has sublimated decline of Iran's position in the real world into an apocalyptic fantasy, there can be no debating. One has to drive a stake through his heart.

There is a great deal for the United States to negotiate with China and Russia, however; and the terms of negotiation appear so simple and lucid as to make a successful outcome likely enough...

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