The great Juan Cole keeps his eye on the ball in a great piece in Salon.com today:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/21/iran/
This is where our attention should be: Bush has lost the Iraq war and handed Iran their greatest victory ever.
In what way would we be worse off if we had simply allowed the inspectors to do their job in Iraq? Bush has been a disaster. We gained absolutely NOTHING from his chest thumping.
Cole points out how the democratically elected government in Iraq is allying itself ever closer with Iran. Cole actually knows the region he is talking about, speaks the language, understands the history and the culture. The neocons who got us into this mess know only their own ideology and put all their eggs in the basket of overwhelming military might. They felt no need to speak the language, to study the culture, to be sensitive (
sensitive! The very word is laughable to them!) to nuances of the region. They were gonna "remake" the region! Spread democracy! I don't know who's stupider - them for promulgating such arrogant bullshit or us for letting them get away with it.
Cole has framed the issue perfectly. Bush has led us into defeat. Any other issue is a distraction. The repercussions of having Bush as our so-called leader are going to loom larger and larger as more chickenhawks come home to roost. Let him appoint whoever he wants to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is only one of the myriad messes he is creating - and that we are eventually going to have to clean up.