Guest Blogged by Alan Breslauer
Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria, who has been criticized for his behind the scenes role in helping the Bush administration’s PR campaign in the run-up to the Iraq war, appears to have learned from his mistakes as far as Iran is concerned. In a week where Zakaria’s own employer made escalating Iranian/US tensions its cover story, Zakaria douses the Bush administration’s rhetoric about the Iranian threat with a dose of reality. While Zakaria would be the first to admit that the disastrous Iraq war has strengthened Iran – along with Vladimir Putin, the Saudi royals, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and the Syrian regime – he also recognizes that “at the end of the day, Iran is a poorly run, oil rich oligarchy, that the Mullahs are running into the ground.”
I wish that commentators with a national platform would stress the demographics of Iran more – this is a country where the majority of the population is young (around 30) with liberal, often pro-West views. Ahmadinejad is not a popular leader. Iranians are not fundamentalist Shias wanting jihad against America.
The truth has to get out.
The House voted 246-182 to tell Bush that the escalation of the Iraq war is not in our national interest. Two dems joined the republicans, and 17 republicans joined the dems.
The Senate voted 56-34 to open debate and then vote on the same House resolution, but fell 4 votes short of stopping the republican filibuster.
The republicans in the Senate and the House are clearly mostly neoCons.
However, it is clear that the majority in the House and Senate, for the first time, are against escalation of the Iraq debacle.
A confrontation that shuts down the government is coming.
Upcoming appropriation bills will have Iraq requirements that mandate proper training and provisioning of troops before they enter an urban civil war. They will also require a professional accounting system to fully account for american tax dollars being spent in Iraq.
Good. Only about one month into the 110th congress and the congress is clearly turning strongly against the madness of the republican fascist white house.
Big Brother is a republican.
Lets hope we can stop big brother before he begins to drool and fondle Iran.
Evidently the fascist white house is loosing its ability to “lie good” about Iran:
(Raw Story, emphasis added). I noticed in the debate about the escalation of the Iraq war, the lies were really coming undone and it was a fools errand to lie the best.
The neoCons really do get an E for effort, but an F for grasp of reality. They actually think that the american people still believe there eggregious lies.
Arlen Specter, republican senator who is resisting the temptation to become a neoCon, said:
(link).
CitizenBoo:
Maybe this will help!
Don’t kid yourselves. I predict that the Dem’s plan is to “give up Iraq” and hope to trap an overconfident neo-con White House in a mis-step on Iran.
By this, I mean, that the house and senate will NOT press Bush on getting out of Iraq, or probably even demand properly funding the VA, or even expect that the Administration would properly arm the cannon fodder (er, I mean soldiers) that they are sending over in the escalation (er, I mean “surge”), or even make any real attempt to force this Rethuglican administration to account for the TENS OF BILLIIONS (that’s right, not millions, not HUNDREDS of millions, not even BILLIONS) in missing money in Iraq.
No, they will, in a very cynical game of chess, “sacrifice the pawn” that is Iraq (and our brave men and women over there and the few remaining Iraqis over there) to the neo-cons and the oil companies and the Saudi’s. They will hope that doing this emboldens Cheney/Rice/Rove and the neo-cons even more and that they then make an insane move against Iran.
Sure, the Democrats know there will be “consequences.” They KNOW exactly what Iran will do if provoked, and they even anticipate and HOPE for it. The Democratic political strategists figure (perhaps correctly) that Americans will vote their pocketbooks, and that $5 gas, $4 bread, $10 milk, riots in the streets, 22% interest rates, and bankruptcy and pain like nothing we’ve ever seen will bring a Democratic President and congressional and senate super-majority to power in 2008 and with it the chance for a new FDR-like solution to the mess that an attack on Iran would create. They are actually WILLING to create a US and worldwide depression just to have something gigantic to blame on the Republicants.
It’s an incredibly cynical game the Democrats are playing, and they may have quite misjudged their opponent. Their plan is to have a bloodbath in the middle of the chess board and come out a queen ahead. What they aren’t counting on is an opponent who may just sweep all the pieces off the board with the back of his hand and pull out a gun and end the game a whole new way. They assume that massive civil unrest and chaos will simply provoke a “Democratic Revolt” at the ballot box. They forget two simple things — this Thug Administration has never cared about who votes or for whom, and they have already put in place plenty of infrastructure and process to eliminate the democratic process if they believe it will not serve their ends.
Be careful what you wish for Democrats — you may just get it!
Fareed Zakaria is a 19th C. apologist for Empire.