Short weekend trip, for personal and professional reasons to Dallas, Texas. Things are in the air, just cannot be revealed at this time. Whether these are the right things for moi……only time will tell. Making a quick stop in SFO first. I’ll blog about politics from there. Seems appropriate.
And like me,the future is uncertain about Iran. Thomas Friedman makes some great arguments about how we’ve put ourselves in a box with respect to Iran. Whether the Bush administration is doing the right thing, like moi and his plans, only time will tell:
Get used to it. Iran is going nuclear. And our bumbling, credibility-challenged administration is impotent to stop it, thanks mainly to their screw-up in Iraq.
Later on down he has what I consider to be a classic quote:
I look at the Bush national security officials much the way I look at drunken drivers. I just want to take away their foreign policy driver’s licenses for the next three years. Sorry, boys and girls, you have to stay home now or take a taxi. Dial 1-800-NATO-CHARGE-A-RIDE. You will not be driving alone. Not with my car.
If ours were a parliamentary democracy, the entire Bush team would be out of office by now, and deservedly so. In Iraq, the president was supposed to lead, manage and hold subordinates accountable, and he did not. Condoleezza Rice was supposed to coordinate, and she did not. Donald Rumsfeld was supposed to listen, and he did not. But ours is not a parliamentary system, and while some may feel as if this administration’s over, it isn’t. So what to do? We can’t just take a foreign policy timeout.
And he gets it right about the Secretary of Defense. Phibian, please take note:
At a minimum, a change must be made at the Pentagon. Mr. Rumsfeld paints himself as a concerned secretary, ready to give our generals in Iraq whatever troops they ask for, but they just haven’t asked. This is hogwash, but even if the generals didn’t ask, the relevant question, Mr. Rumsfeld, is: What did you ask them?
Can I get an amen?
Of course the “more troops” argument cuts both ways, because the army was not big enough to start with, and the Secretary viewed the rest of the military folks as just “people are expensive” slackers who needed to be put into the Iraq deployment rotation-trained or not. Thus we have Navy and Air Force personnel being offered up for IA’s in ever increasing numbers, doing things they did not sign up for, nor are trained well to do. Big Armies in garrison are expensive, but they are like an insurance policy or a condom. You hate having to buy one, but know you that its just too risky not to have one when you need it. Or at least most people do.
It may be that learning to live with a nuclear Iran
is the wisest thing under any circumstances. But it would be nice to have a choice. It would be nice to have the option of a diplomatic deal to end Iran’s nuclear program but that will come only with a credible threat of force. Yet we will not have the support at home or abroad for that threat as long as Don Rumsfeld leads the Pentagon. No one in their right mind would follow this man into another confrontation and that is a real strategic liability.
I suspect that will get the home guard stirred up, especially those who feel we had to take out Saddam. However Friedman may in fact be right. If we are to enter into “war without end” maybe we should finish one at a time before starting the next one. Or maybe we should remember where the Shwerpunkt is. Its Iran, not Iraq which as I pointed out before,has been “jammed by a thoughtful Providence against the Caucasus like huge plug, holding back the bear {and his illegitimate stepchildren}. It’s as big as all Western Europe and it’s mostly harsh mountains and deserts…….its people……..are unmanageable.“ Both nations are very capable and committed to their independence even if it entails national suicide as they both have demonstrated at least once in the last 3000 years.
Read the whole article before tearing into me.
