Powerful post!
I’ve said for years that Tehran was playing both sides of the Sunni/Shiite divide in Iraq. It made sense. Tehran understands the stakes and is pulling out all stops to ensure victory.
You’ve been proven right, {of course you KNEW you were right, and you KNEW your take wasn’t based on wishful thinking}.
If the President persists in his indirect approach, {id est, stabilize Iraq to destabilize Iran} then the information will prove of little worth.
BUT IF, but if he moves on your suggestion, {destabilize Iran to stabilize Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian areas} and starts SERIOUSLY aiding whatever Iranian resistance exists, then we’ll know he truly understands the scale and scope of this civilizational death struggle.
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but there seems to be a clear fear in Washington that if you conclude the war involves Tehran and Damascus, then YOU MUST conclude that the war IS a religious war, IS a modern crusade. You can’t help but sense that Washington intends to avoid running the risk of an islam/Western clash by avoiding the prospect of a US/Iran clash.
There are so many misjudgements informing our non-policy towards Tehran, it’s simply amazing.
As for President Bush, I don’t hold out much hope that he’ll prove equal to the duel between Washington and Tehran.
We’re in the OK Corral, and we better get damn serious.
And it isn’t just the policy makers being unhappy with the direction that they are being driven, it’s also a thing of ego. They can’t take being proven wrong all along, so the temptation to overlook this information will prove overpowering. Careers should ride on who got this thing right, and who got it wrong. But for some reason, people don’t get fired in Washington anymore.
Bush’s Axis of Evil will have been proven right. The minimalist take on this conflict will have been proven wrong. But Bush has gotten away from that Axis of Evil rhetoric, as well as the Axis of Evil policy ramifications. So we’ll see.
Egomaniacs can’t abide the exposure of their errors.
And you’re dead right that ALL present discussions on how to fix Iraq are DOOMED to failure, so long as we don’t destroy the regime in Iran, whether your way by INTENSELY aiding the Iranian resistance, or my suggestion, massive and sustained military onslaught. But either way you choose to take down the mullahs, it had better be done NOW. It’s not like we don’t have a window of opportunity that isn’t closing. Once they get nukes the prospect of revolution will have died, for the mullahs will be able to kill with impunity.
And Karen Hughes SHOULD NOT be given a medal, and should be replaced. What a sick joke that such a woman, clearly and demonstrably out of her depth, could have found a place at the Department of State of the United States of America.
This administration of the second raters, the junior varsity, and the not ready for prime time players has got to end.
We need the fricken first team to wage and win this war.
Doesn’t any Conservative confront ANYONE in this administration on the Washington cocktail circuit.
What we need is a repeat of the ole Team B experiment within the CIA during the ’70s. But this time, regarding Iran.
We get you, Adelman, Perle, some others, all knowledgeable, all connected. And RELYING upon the SAME information currently available, you draw up an estimate of Tehran’s capacities and intentions. We allow the present bureaucrats to do the same.
And then we have a little meeting, just like what happened with Team B.
That’s what we need.
God knows that would have been more worthy of our country than that pusillanimous ISG group.
