Volume 4 Issue 6
January 11, 2007
Fooled Again
What you missed in Bush's speech, new condenders join the presidential fray, and John Edwards touches the past
So after his election losses, an expert commission, and numerous public and private discussions on the future of Iraq policy, President Bush last night unveiled his "new" vision, which will result in over 26,000 more troops heading to Baghdad in the next few weeks. There are many issues here that one could comment on, from the overtaxing of our military leading to us losing the war on terror elsewhere, to the interesting question of what we will do even if we clear the insurgents from Baghdad...won't that just force them to other parts of the country?
But the big issue from the speech last night, and American policy over the last 24 hours, is one you won't see at the top of the news, you need to dig around for it. That is, last night President Bush took a big step to starting a new war, one that will make Iraq look like a vacation. In the last 24 hours, Bush's administration has made it clear it desires a war with Iran.
In his speech, Bush spoke of, "taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East". Notice he didn't say Iraq. These steps included sending a new carrier task force to the Persian Gulf (Iraq has no navy and about 2 miles of coastline), and the deployment of Patriot missile systems, "to reassure our friends and allies." To my knowledge, Iraqi insurgents or players in the civil war there have not been attacking Israel or Saudi Arabia...but Iran has threatened to.
This article in the New York Times this morning shows that inside the administration, the war in Iraq is widely viewed as a war with Iran as well. And lest you think this is just an overreaction...let's take a look at what happened today. In a pre-dawn raid, the US occupied an Iranian consulate in the Kurdish regions of Iraq, detaining 5 Iranian officials and seizing documents and computers. Now, there is some dispute as to whether this was a formal diplomatic installation or not...but take a minute to realize that if it is, the US basically committed an act of war against Iran. And even if it wasn't, it still seems to drive the point home that the Bush administration views Iran now as not a future threat, but one that we are engaging now.
Now, I do realize that the Iranian intentions in Iraq are less than noble, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this "consulate" was really something else. But the timing and method of the raid speak to the Administration's continued shortsightedness in foreign policy. Not only has this brought bad publicity to the "surge" plan, it also has really pissed off the Kurds, who up until now were the only real backers of the American involvement in Iraq. The official Kurdish presidency said that "the raid does not help the efforts to bring peace, stability and security to the rest of Iraq." And word is that the Americans actually disarmed Kurdish troops that were guarding the consulate.
This is apparently already causing the US more trouble. Another raid was said to have happened near the airport in Erbil, but Kurdish forces apparently tipped off the targets and delayed the Americans from proceeding to the airport. In the entire war effort, the Kurds have been our biggest backers. If raids like these continue to occur, we could end up with even less friends than we had in Iraq.
But the bigger issue is that once again George W. Bush has decided to take the nation into a long and costly war, and then misrepresented it to the nation as something else entirely. Except this time, he's decided to not even tell us that we're going to war, instead just daring the Iranians to strike back - and when they do, he's told us he'll have the fire power there to fight them. It's bad enough that the nation and the Congress allowed Bush to trick them into one war - they should let him know they won't let him do it again.
The Surge: Bush portrayed us leaving as deserting the Iraqi government which so badly wants our help. Except as this article points out...they really don't -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/world/middleeast/11iraq.ht ml
George Will discusses why it may be too late for a surge to help, and why the Iraqi government isn't really worth helping anyway -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16501672/site/newsweek/
The Minimum Wage Non-Issue: In the past, raising the minimum wage was a battle, with business interests lining up to oppose it. So why does even the President support it this time? Because numerous evidence has shown it doesn't really effect business much at all. Here's a great example with the situation on the border between Idaho, which has the federal $5.15. wage, and Washington, which has a minimum wage of almost $8, even higher than the Dems propose -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/us/11minimum.html
Look Who's Running for President: Jonathan Alter on why Chuck Hagel (who tore into Condi Rice today on the surge plan) might just end up having a shot at the GOP nomination in 2008 -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16497901/site/newsweek
Look Who's Running for President 2: This week has seen Jim Gilmore enter as a longshot on the GOP side, and today it's Dem longshot Chris Dodd -
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/11/washington/11cnd-dodd.html
Look Who's Running for President 3: Chris Cillizza says that the Biden candidacy is shaping up to be a much more serious bid than many thought -
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2007/01/biden_08_not_j ust_all_talk.html
Look Who's Nominating a President: Denver will host the 2008 Democratic National Convention -
http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/blogs/politicalticker/2007/01/dn c-chooses-denver-to-host_116853512174914667.html
Bad John Edwards Photo of the Day:
As I feared, it's getting hard to find photos this early in the cycle, so we'll have to improvise...
Citizens at an Edwards rally in Iowa react to his speech.
