Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

I just moved into my new house (conveniently located in the same neighborhood as my old house). Since I am horrible at planning ahead, I am now without an internet connection until next Tuesday. However, when I am back on the Internets I will be surfing at light speed on my new Verizon FIOS connection. So, the posts will come fast and furious

Until then, I will be posting sporadically - assuming I post from my workplace or can piggyback off an unsuspecting neighbor’s unsecured wireless network. I hope that Mr. Bush will give me the courtesy of at least waiting until next week before attacking Iran - I’d hate to miss out on the blogging frenzy.

Is this the mission? (Warning: Please do not watch the following video if you cannot handle reality.)

Does this man know what the mission is?

BLITZER: But there is a terrible situation there.

CHENEY: No, there is not. There is not. There’s problems — ongoing problems — but we have, in fact, accomplished our objectives of getting rid of the old regime…

BLITZER: And…

CHENEY: … and there is a new regime in place that’s been there for less than a year, far too soon for you guys to write them off. They have got a democratically written constitution, the first ever in that part of the world. They’ve had three national elections. So there’s been a lot of success.

We still…

BLITZER: How worried are you, Mr. Vice President…

CHENEY: We still have more work to do to get a handle on the security situation…

BLITZER: How worried…

CHENEY: But the president has put a plan in place to do that.

BLITZER: How worried are you of this nightmare scenario — that the U.S. is building up this Shiite-dominated Iraqi government with an enormous amount of military equipment, sophisticated training, and then, in the end, they’re going to turn against the United States?

CHENEY: Wolf, that’s not going to happen. The problem is you’ve got…

BLITZER: They’re very — very — warming up to Iran…

CHENEY: Wolf…

BLITZER: … and Syria right now.

CHENEY: Wolf, you can — you can come up with all kinds of what- ifs. You’ve got to be deal with the reality on the ground. The reality on the ground is we’ve made major progress. We’ve still got a lot of work to do. We’ve got a lot of provinces in Iraq that are relatively quiet. There’s more and more authority transferred to the Iraqis all the time.

But the biggest problem we face right now is the danger than the United States will validate the terrorists’ strategy, that, in fact, what will happen here, with all of the debate over whether or not we ought to stay in Iraq, with the pressures from some quarters to get out of Iraq, if we were to do that, we would simply validate the terrorists’ strategy that says the Americans will not stay to complete the task…

What is the United States doing in Iraq’s civil war?

Senator Jim Webb of Virginia delivered the Democratic response to President Bush’s State of the Union speech tonight. I think I can safely say that in eight minutes Senator Webb laid waste to President Bush’s "surge" fantasies.

There was confusion and there was leadership tonight on Capital Hill. Senator Webb provided the leadership:

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues - those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death - we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm’s way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us - sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

The President took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable - and predicted - disarray that has followed.

The war’s costs to our nation have been staggering.

Financially.

The damage to our reputation around the world.

The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism.

And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally-based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq’s cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

…

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the General who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War Two. And as soon as he became President, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These Presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this President to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

It is time for the President to listen to the American people, their elected representatives, and to reason. Play time is over.

Intrepid warblogger Michelle Malkin has exposed the deception, the lies, the manipulation, the rumors that is the Associated Press today. This factanista of a blogger, this selfless wanderer, this hero to all journalists has saved the world from the lies and distortions that the Associated Press feeds unsuspecting millions every day.

For me personally, she nearly rivals the inimitable Debbie Schlussel for exposing the fake news that we are fed constantly by the so-called mainstream media and the liberal blogosphere.

It is with much admiration for her craft that I present to you, the humble reader, the truth in Iraq according to Ms. Malkin (but brace yourself, this will change everything):

WELL, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior says disputed Associated Press source Jamil Hussein does exist. But at least one story he told the AP just doesn’t check out: The Sunni mosques that as Hussein claimed and AP reported as "destroyed," "torched" and "burned and [blown] up" are all still standing. So the credibility of every AP story relying on Jamil Hussein remains dubious.

So what if the Associated Press actually was correct about a certain Mr. Jamil Hussein. So what if Ms. Malkin and her wingnut friends were embarrassed, nay, humiliated, by their wingnuttery. Now, the wingnuts are still standing just like those mosques in Iraq.

You see, apparently the Associated Press, in their initial version of the report on Sunnis being burned alive, claimed that mosques in the area had also been "destroyed" and subsequently changed "destroyed" to "burned". The reports I have read of the incident all use the word "burned" but Ms. Malkin states that the first report off the AP wire said "destroyed". I am too cheap to pay for Lexis/Nexis to verify the claim so I will just take her word for it.

This woman, Ms. Malkin that is, has been there and provides this bit of on-the-ground reporting that wimps like Michael Ware just are too afraid to provide:

Well, Bryan Preston and I visited the area during our Iraq trip last week. Several mosques did, in fact, come under attack by Mahdi Army forces. But the "destroyed" mosques all still stand. Iraqi and U.S. Army officials say that two of them received no fire damage whatsoever. Another, which we filmed, was abandoned and empty when it was attacked.

So, you see, the mosques were attacked, but not DESTROYED. They may have been burned, but they were not DESTROYED. Take that, Associated Press.

Obviously the Associated Press cannot be trusted since they said "destroyed" on one version of the story instead of "burned":

And if this one doesn’t, how many others don’t? As AP exec Carroll herself said, "AP runs hundreds of stories a day, and has run thousands of stories about things that have happened in Iraq." Jamil Hussein supplied the AP with information for scores of stories, not just this faulty one. Rumor-based reporting serves no one’s interests but those who would see Iraq fail.

The Associated Press and its rumor-based reporting only helps the enemy. I think it is time to reconsider the notion that Iraq is in turmoil. I think some fresh reporting from there might show that we are indeed being greeted as liberators and the flowers at our soldiers’ feet are piling up.

Of course, everyone knows that Iraqis are a lazy, lying, manipulative, rumor-mongering bunch of "fleas". As Michelle Malkin points out:

Winning the counterinsurgency battle is not just about keeping Iraqis safe. It’s about keeping Americans safe–by sending a message that the mightiest military in the world cannot and will not be outwitted and outlasted by the fleas.

And these "fleas" are in serious need of dentistry, according to a soldier quoted by Ms. Malkin:

"So, rumors on the street Iraqis will take at face value. Trying to get them to do investigations is like pulling teeth out of their head."

So, as you can see, Michelle Malkin, having been humiliated in the past, has finally broken up the Associated Press’ pattern of rumors and falsehoods. This is the kind of dogged reporting we should all encourage from our wingnut friends. I applaud Ms. Malkin for her trip to Iraq. Only sad part about her whole Iraq trip is that she has returned before the war has ended. I think all wingnuts should travel to Iraq and stay and report from there until the war is over. They would be doing this nation a service.

Oh, one more thing. Michelle Malkin’s reporting has inspired me. I was reading her wonderful post on this topic and started to carefully study the photographs she posted. I made an amazing discovery as demonstrated in the image below.

The picture on the left of the image is a portion of one of the pictures Ms. Malkin posted on her blog. The picture is a portion of a photograph taken in Baghdad showing a man speaking to Iraqi army officers. The picture to the right of the image is that of Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria. I find the similarities between the man in the picture on the left and the picture of Assad on the right remarkably similar. Could it be that the Syrians have infiltrated the Iraqi army? Could it be that Assad is hiding out in Iraq? Could it? Doesn’t someone need to investigate this? Who on the wingnut blogosphere will take up this task? Who??? (By the way, if the guy turns out to be Assad, I want all the wingnuts to know that I broke the news first!) Now get to work exposing the truth!

Maybe I am easily amused, but a little nugget I discovered via Americablog has just made my day (and my daughter loves it too).

Meet Matt Harding, who literally dances his way around the world.

Enjoy the video and the wonderful song that accompanies it:

It truly is a beautiful planet. We should spend more time dancing and exploring it.

"Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. " - President George W Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, September 20, 2001

Liar.

While we foster chaos and death in Iraq, those who attacked us on September 11, 2001 and those who supported and harbored them, and continue to support and harbor them, still enjoy our patronage. The American people have been hoodwinked into a neo-conservative wet dream of a war while our real enemies enjoy freedom and state dinners at the White House.

——————————————————

I lived in the Pakistani city of Quetta when I was a little younger than Senator Barack Obama was when he attended school in Indonesia. My father was the only Bangladeshi civilian to attend Pakistan Army’s elite Command and Staff College in Quetta. For that privilege the Pakistan army tried repeatedly to kill him. Today Quetta is a hotbed of Taliban activity and is a major center for the shadowy activities of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Like Obama, I suppose I need the Taliban beaten out of me! But I digress…

It is an open secret that the ISI helped establish the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Pakistan army and intelligence services have long supported Islamists. Islamists have provided Pakistan with a proxy force to fight in Kashmir and have provided a source of intelligence and mischief inside its arch-rival India. In return, the army and the ISI have given the Islamists a comfortable home in Pakistan as well as political power. It was Pakistan’s American backed military ruler who enacted the Hudood Ordinance in 1979 that implemented Sharia law in Pakistan.

Today Pakistan and the ISI continue to support the Taliban, as Washington turns a blind eye. In a courageous article in the New York Times, Carlotta Gall asked the question that Mr. Bush needs to answer to the American people: "Have Pakistani intelligence agencies been promoting the Islamic insurgency?"

Ms. Gall reports from Quetta:

Western diplomats in both countries and Pakistani opposition figures say that Pakistani intelligence agencies — in particular the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence and Military Intelligence — have been supporting a Taliban restoration, motivated not only by Islamic fervor but also by a longstanding view that the jihadist movement allows them to assert greater influence on Pakistan’s vulnerable western flank.

More than two weeks of reporting along this frontier, including dozens of interviews with residents on each side of the porous border, leaves little doubt that Quetta is an important base for the Taliban, and found many signs that Pakistani authorities are encouraging the insurgents, if not sponsoring them.

She continues:

The Pakistani military and intelligence services have for decades used religious parties as a convenient instrument to keep domestic political opponents at bay and for foreign policy adventures, said Husain Haqqani, a former adviser to several of Pakistan’s prime ministers and the author of a book on the relationship between the Islamists and the Pakistani security forces.

The religious parties recruited for the jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan from the 1980s, when the Pakistani intelligence agencies ran the resistance by the mujahedeen and channeled money to them from the United States and Saudi Arabia to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, Mr. Haqqani said.

In return for help in Kashmir and Afghanistan the intelligence services would rig votes for the religious parties and allow them freedom to operate, he said.

…

The Inter-Services Intelligence once had an entire wing dedicated to training jihadis, he said. Today the religious parties probably have enough of their own people to do the training, but, he added, the I.S.I. so thoroughly monitors phone calls and people’s movements that it would be almost impossible for any religious party to operate a training camp without its knowledge.

She concludes her reporting with a quote from a local father who has lost his son to the ISI and the Taliban: ‘“All Taliban are I.S.I. Taliban. It is not possible to go to Afghanistan without the help of the I.S.I. Everyone says this.”

I called her reporting courageous, and here is why in a first-hand report from Ms. Gall:

My photographer, Akhtar Soomro, and I were followed over several days of reporting in Quetta by plainclothes intelligence officials who were posted at our respective hotels. That is not unusual in Pakistan, where accredited journalists are free to travel and report, but their movements, phone calls and interviews are often monitored.

On our fifth and last day in Quetta, Dec. 19, four plainclothesmen detained Mr. Soomro at his hotel downtown and seized his computer and photo equipment.

They raided my hotel room that evening, using a key card to open the door and then breaking through the chain that I had locked from the inside. They seized a computer, notebooks and a cellphone.

One agent punched me twice in the face and head and knocked me to the floor. I was left with bruises on my arms, temple and cheekbone, swelling on my eye and a sprained knee.

One of the men told me that I was not permitted to visit Pashtunabad, a neighborhood in Quetta, and that it was forbidden to interview members of the Taliban.

The men did not reveal their identity but said we could apply to the Special Branch of the Interior Ministry for our belongings the next day.

Make no mistake about it, this is how the Pakistani military and the ISI operate. I called the Pakistani leader, and our "ally", General Pervez Musharraf a thug a few months ago, and with good reason.

Carlotta Gall reports from Quetta at great risk to her personal security. Her reporting should prompt every American to ask the following of our commander-in-chief: Why are American bombs falling on Baghdad instead of Islamabad?

I quoted the Bush Doctrine at the beginning of this post. According to Mr. Bush’s own doctrine, we should be at war with Pakistan. Pakistan is harboring and supporting the Taliban. It is widely acknowledged that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are sheltering in Pakistan. There have been recent reports that the ISI itself is sheltering Mullah Omar in Quetta. Taliban are coming across the border from Pakistan and attacking American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. According to Mr. Bush, we should consider Pakistan a "hostile regime". Why don’t we?

The issue in Iraq is not between "surge" or no "surge". The issue is whether we should be there, even today, while our real enemies go unaddressed. I have to wonder if attacking the wrong country, while ignoring the real enemy, rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.

The latest wingnut hit job on Barack Obama is a two-pronged attack. First, it tries to paint Senator Obama as a Muslim (i.e., "terrorist" ) who cannot be trusted. Second, and more subtly, by forcing the Senator and most thinking people to point out that the Senator is not in fact a Muslim, it leaves the implication that being Muslim is something to be feared. This second line of attack is the subject of this post.

Others have pretty much made mincemeat of the nonsense being flung at Senator Obama, so I won’t spend time here defending the Senator. I will only add two points. First, anyone who knows anything about the education system in Indonesia would laugh at the wingnuts’ ignorance. Second, the Bush Administration actively supports Islamic education in Indonesia through the American Corners program. (psst…one more thing: don’t tell the wingnuts that the Asian Development Bank just gave $50 million to develop madrasa education in Indonesia).

Regarding the American Corners program, behold Karen Hughes, public diplomat extraordinaire and George W Bush confidant, cozying up to those Islamic educators in Indonesia:

Let us get back to the charge that somehow being Muslim is a bad thing - that Muslims cannot be trusted, that they must be feared and watched. A lot of Muslim commentators that are dragged out every time there is a suicide bombing usually go into a defensive crouch: don’t blame us, we are the moderate Muslims; we categorically reject the latest heinous crime, etc., etc., etc. This image of Muslims claiming their "moderate"ness and the incessant Muslim bashing that comes from the wingnuts is poisoning the well. It has led to the notion that unless Muslims jump every time some Muslim has done something horrible, they are not being patriotic or they are supporting the terrorists. This notion has taken hold lately - Muslims are being painted as a monolithic herd and the only way to proclaim one’s patriotism or innocence is now to distance oneself from the herd. I have written in the past that this is a dangerous trap for Muslims to fall into - yet here we are.

I recommend a different approach. I recommend an approach that I hope you, the reader, will find to be quintessentially American.

I declare: I am proud to be a Muslim.

I am proud to be a Muslim. I am proud to have been raised in the Islamic tradition. My parents taught me tolerance, respect for others, respect for one’s elders, honesty, dignity of labor, and other essential qualities of a good and decent life. My parents raised me to celebrate diversity and strive for understanding rather than confrontation. In other words, the values I have been taught are Islamic values - just like they are Christian values, or Jewish values, or Hindu values - they are family values.

I was born in a majority Muslim country. I learned at a very early age the importance of tolerance for other religions. I grew up surrounded by other religions. I celebrated pooja with our Hindu neighbors in my village; I celebrated Christmas with my Christian nanny. My mother, a Muslim, studied at a convent in Bangladesh; I went to a school run by Christian missionaries in Dhaka.

I grew up in one of the largest Muslim majority countries in the world. That country, Bangladesh, has a secular constitution that guarantees freedom of religion - it is a constitution that borrows much from the American constitution. That country, Bangladesh, has had two female prime ministers - imagine a Muslim country with not one, but two, women who have ruled it. Bangladesh was formed in part to protect the rights of its people - Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Atheists - to live in a secular state. All my life, I have lived under the Muslim belief that there is "no compulsion in religion".

I am proud to be a Muslim.

I grew up admiring American ideals. I memorized the Bill of Rights as a child. I read and absorbed the Constitution of the United States - the result of thousands of years of human evolution. I immigrated to this country, became naturalized, and with my right hand raised, I claimed that Constitution as my own.

I am proud to be an American and a Muslim.

I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. That Constitution guarantees me the free exercise of my religion and forbids the establishment of a state religion. That Constitution celebrates diversity.

I am proud to be an American and a Muslim. I am grateful that my daughter is growing up in a country that protects and celebrates diversity. I am confident that the pitiful and ignorant hatemongering will ultimately fail.

Finally, if the reader will indulge me, I have a message today for the Debbie Schlussels of the world: you can kiss my American and Muslim behind.

As Bangladesh comes to grips with the State of Emergency that it is now under, I continue to be concerned about the coup that has taken place. Now there is talk in Bangladesh of this unelected government staying in power for six months or perhaps a year. In the mean time, they will fix the ills of the country - at least that is the promise.

Bangladeshis are heatedly debating the benefits or the need for democracy. There is a lively discussion taking place at Drishtipat about whether Bangladesh is better off under military rule. As most of you know, I fall into the pro-democracy camp.

The Economist weighs in today about the coup that no one seems to want to talk about:

WHEN Iajuddin Ahmed, Bangladesh’s president, declared an army-backed state of emergency on January 11th and cancelled the election due on January 22nd, neither he nor the foreign governments quietly cheering him on used the word “coup”. Yet that is what it looks like. The army, in the tradition of “guardian coups” from Fiji to Thailand, has stepped in with the usual list of apparently noble goals. The interim government it is backing will enable credible elections, clean up the country’s extremely politicised civil service, fight corruption, fix the country’s power crisis and keep food prices in check—and then return to the barracks.

The president stood down as head of the caretaker government that had been supposed to oversee the elections. He was replaced by Fakhruddin Ahmed, a former central-bank governor and World Bank official. The technocratic administration he heads has so far sent the right signals. A drive against corruption—in which Bangladesh regularly nears the top of world league tables—is under way. The national-security chief, the top civil servant in the power ministry and the attorney-general have all been ousted. A start has been made in separating the judiciary from the executive.

 

But restoring democracy remains a tall order. The political system has collapsed. The army insisted the president step in before the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which headed a coalition government for the past five years, could rig the election and secure itself another term.

…

Although the state of emergency has supporters even among some liberal democrats, it is a high-stakes gamble. Authoritarian rule is unlikely to appeal for long, however fed up voters are with the two big parties and their mutually-loathing leaders. The main beneficiary from the failure of mainstream politics is an extremist Islamist fringe.

It remains to be seen whether democracy will return to Bangladesh any time soon. The Caretaker Government has already started to go well beyond its constitutional mandate. It currently has public support because the people are looking for solutions to the rampant corruption that has plagued the country. However, unelected governments have a logic of their own - and fairly quickly such governments’ perception of the public good becomes skewed.

Already a crackdown on "criminals and other disruptive elements" has started:

Bangladesh police used emergency powers to arrest nearly 2,000 people, as the president on Thursday swore in the final members of the council that will organize elections he delayed to quell violent protests.

Police announced they arrested some 1,968 people in raids across the country since Wednesday — part of a nationwide crackdown that officials say is targeting criminals and other disruptive elements that could affect the elections.

Security forces have detained more than 6,000 people since the state of emergency was declared on Jan. 11, according to a police statement.

I wonder how long before the definition of "disruptive elements" is broadened. Forgive me if I am wary of crackdowns by the military - I still recall the Pakistani army’s crackdown on "miscreants" on March 25, 1971.

History will teach us nothing.

Jon Swift reports exclusively that, according to his sources, Michael Ledeen is dead. TBogg also is tracking this breaking news. Crooks & Liars features the news in its round-up.

So, I’m thinking it must be true. I called my double super secret source deep in the bowels of the Iraqi government and this is what my source reports:

Michael Ledeen was in fact present at Saddam Hussein’s execution. He was one of the masked hangmen who wrapped the noose around Saddam’s neck.

After Saddam was hanged everyone broke out in a fit of breakdancing. In an unfortunate and tragic accident, Mr. Ledeen, while dancing with joy, accidentally fell through the hole in the gallows platform and plummeted to his death. The whole incident was captured on cell phone video by Iraq’s national security advisor Dr. al-Rubaie.

Later, while still shocked from losing such a hero of the Iraqi people, the freedom-loving Iraqis showed their gratitude to Mr. Ledeen by showering his body with flowers and candy.

I have been unable to confirm this story further. Since then, my source deep within the bowels of the Iraqi government, or Deep Shiite, has disappeared.

Please stay tuned for updates as they become available.

The Bush Administration is spiraling down into a major conflagration in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. To some extent, it is traveling on auto pilot. Left to its own momentum of inaction and massive overreaction, this Administration will almost certainly embark on a war with Iran.

It has been on this course for a long time.

Last Spring when Seymour Hersh first stirred up the pot, I wrote the following:

I recall quipping to a friend a few weeks ago that I thought the way out of Iraq for this Administration was through Iran. What I meant at the time was that since this Administration had haplessly shifted the center of gravity of Iraqi politics to Iran, without Iran having to fire a shot, that the only way to exit out of Iraq with "credibility" was to attack Iran. Iran then becomes a continuation of a larger war "on terror" and it can then not be said that Iraq was lost since it will only become an unfinished chapter in a larger war.

It is now becoming apparent that the way out of Iraq, for this Administration, is indeed through Iran.

The eternally confused cheerleader of the Iraq invasion, Kenneth Pollack, was quoted in the New York Times stating the obvious:

“The administration does have Iran on the brain, and I think they are exaggerating the amount of Iranian activities in Iraq,” Kenneth M. Pollack, the director of research at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, said Sunday. “There’s a good chance that this is going to be counterproductive — that this is a way to get into a spiral with Iran that leads you into conflict. The likely response from the Iranians is that they are going to want to demonstrate to us that they are not going to be pushed around.”

Mr. Pollack is half right. The Administration does have Iran on the brain, but Iran is not likely to respond so easily to such provocations. I think the latter statement is a little bit of wishful thinking on Mr. Pollock’s part.

Last week, in a confusing and contradictory speech, Mr. Bush went squarely after Iran (and threw Turkey a much overlooked bone regarding the Kurds):

Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of the extremist challenge.

This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.

We will expand intelligence sharing, and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies. We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border. And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.

Since then his loyal surrogates - Bob Gates, Condi Rice, Stephen Hadley and Dick Cheney - have spread out across the world beating the drums of war.

Mr. Cheney, emerging from his secure undisclosed location, found it easy to replace "q" with "n" in his doomsday messages:

“So the threat that Iran represents is growing,” he said, in words reminiscent of how he once built a case against Mr. Hussein. “It’s multidimensional, and it is, in fact, of concern to everybody in the region.”

We can expect the bombs to start flying when the threat from Iran goes from "growing" to "grave and gathering".

This latest bravado is not only a signal by this Administration of defeat in Iraq; it is also a signal of defeat to Iran. The United States has been outmaneuvered by Iran, both in Iraq and on the nuclear issue. Having lost the war on the geo-political battlefield, the Bush Administration’s only option left is to lob missiles and drop bombs. The Bush Administration is out of its depth when it comes to foreign policy. Its only weapon, which it has so far failed to wield effectively, is the military option.

Mr. Bush’s plan to interdict Iranian agents inside Iraq is ill-conceived and naive. Iran’s power in Iraq does not come from supplying IEDs or other weapons to attack American troops. The Sunni Iraqi insurgents, those who make up the bulk of the force attacking American troops, are not supplied or supported by Iran. Most of Iran’s support structure in Iraq has been decades in the making. It is not limited to a few agents supplying arms to Shia militias. Iran has been, for decades, supporting Shia parties in Iraq. The most prominent of these are the SCIRI and the Dawa party - both of which hold the reigns of power in Iraq. They control many of the key ministries, including the Ministry of Interior. SCIRI’s Badr Brigade has become fully integrated into the Ministry of Interior and regularly carries out its death squad activities under official sanction. The SCIRI and the Dawa party were founded and trained by Iran in the 1980s. Most of the leaders of the two parties were exiled in Iran, if not Syria, for much of the last two decades - and a significant number of these leaders speak Persian as well as Arabic. When the SCIRI and Dawa party leaders speak of foreign interference in Iraq’s internal affairs, they are not talking about Iran, they are talking about the United States and the Sunni Arab countries.

Iran’s support does not end with the Shia. Iran has also been supporting elements within Iraqi Kurdistan since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. Iran’s roots in Iraq run deep and wide. It is fortified each year with millions of Iranian pilgrims who descend upon the Shia holy sites in Iraq. So, when Stephen Hadley asserts that the United States is resisting Iranian "hegemony" in the region, he is remarkably naive. Iran already has hegemony over much of Iraq, and the odds of the United States countering that hegemony are slim to none.

The irony is that when Mr. Bush talks about going after death squads in Iraq, he is talking about going after Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Iran would like nothing better. Although al-Sadr is Shia, he is also an Arab nationalist. He is against partitioning Iraq to form a southern homeland for the Shia. By going after al-Sadr, once again Mr. Bush would be doing Iran’s bidding. To add further to the mess of Mr. Bush’s policy, Mr. Bush’s latest best friend in Iraq is Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of SCIRI. al-Hakim also happens to be Tehran’s man in Iraq, and for an independent Shia homeland in the south. By eliminating al-Sadr’s influence and positioning SCIRI to take over the leadership in Iraq, Mr. Bush will have ensured Iranian dominance of Iraq.

The political outlook in Iraq does not look good for Mr. Bush. The die was cast on this course when the first American bombs started falling on Iraq in 2003. There is now only one option for Mr. Bush to avoid defeat in Iraq - and that is to attack Iran. Mr. Bush and his coterie of advisors certainly knows their machinations in Iraq will not effectively counter Iranian "hegemony". So, they are going through the motions and getting ready to go for the jugular.

Mr. Cheney warned yesterday about Iran:

They are in a position where site astride the Straits of Hormuz, where over 20% of the world’s supply of oil transits every single day, over 18 million barrels a day.

There is really one solution to Mr. Cheney’s geographic quandary. That solution is to wipe Iran off the map so they no longer sit "astride the Straits of Hormuz".