I read Cenk Uygur's excellent diary, "We Have No Hope," in reference to a military strike on Iran, or maybe, God forbid, an invasion. I like his self reflective statements about possibly being alarmist, and I think that he is. I disagree with him about the Democrats, but we all know that there is no hope for Republicans. Their failures, their arrogance and their contempt for the nation's institutions and the rule of law will be their lasting legacy for a generation. When we (progressives) were in the minority, and said, "You're being lied to and we will be proven right," and were proven right, it is slim satisfaction for the pain and torment endured by the countless American and Iraqi families. If the order is given to attack Iran, I disagree with Cenk on what will happen, and believe that finally, the monsters will be told "No," either by Gates or someone further down the chain of command.
A Republican with any single one of of the characteristics that Dorothy's companions were looking for on the way to Oz would have done, but instead Republican primary voters found someone with no redeeming characteristics. O'Falafel can point to that statement as proof this is a left-wing hate site.
But around to the news. Bush's life will be scrutinized for hundreds of years as an example of Greek tragedy, as Maureen Dowd has written about, but that is the subject of diaries and books that have yet to be written. That McClatchy article referenced Bush's press conference, where he, and only he, can make statements dripping with such tragic irony:
"My message to the Iranian people is, you can do better than this current government," he said. "You don't have to be isolated. You don't have to be in a position where you can't realize your full economic potential."
If Bush had different parents, he could have realized his full economic potential by selling insurance or new cars or kicking people around as a middle manager at a big corporation and then getting laid off in the next round of downsizing. He would have definitely been an asshole, to be sure, but not an asshole that would have had the power to cause of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
The other interpretation of that statement is the obvious and delusional one: admiring the Bush administration for what they did in Iraq, Iranian people are going to flock to respond to Bush's call to overthrow their govermemt or get the hell bombed out of them. They also see the booming economy that is modern-day Iraq, and want to emulate that economic success. There is no question that Iraq is not like Iran in a way, because its population and religious preferences are more homogenous (which I understand better than Bush), and that it would be a wealthy country if it had a truly free, open society. The question is whether or not we set back the cause of freedom by attempting to bring it through battlefield nuclear weapons and depleted uranium.
Another quote in the article shows that Bush (because of his lack of any objective thought nor any acknowledgement of another person's valid point of view), and the people around him are equally as guilty (since Bush chooses not to read the papers). Look at the reasoning in this statement, and substute "signal" for"objective evidence" since Bush uses it in this way:
Maliki is on a three-day visit to Tehran, during which he was photographed Wednesday hand in hand with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Unconfirmed media reports said Maliki had told Iranian officials they'd played a constructive role in the region.
Asked about that, Bush said he hadn't been briefed on the meeting. "Now if the signal is that Iran is constructive, I will have to have a heart-to-heart with my friend the prime minister, because I don't believe they are constructive. I don't think he in his heart of hearts thinks they're constructive either," he said.
Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.