Now On to Iran

Time tested formula...lose political support: start shooting. Or if your only tool is a hammer then treat all of your problems like nails. Any way it is seen, the US has taken the first step towards a round of hostilities with pre-nuclear Iran. And there is the obvious sarcasm that it must be done now before the window of opportunity to hammer a non-nuclear opponent disappears. So far the war/Republican election cycle has avoided nuclear opponents: Grenada, Panama, Iraq #1, Iraq#2. We have avoided Cuba, Somalia, Kenya, the Balkans and a host of others. So far the Democrats have not joined in...they seemed to have learned something from Vietnam.
For all of its success the war in Iraq has deteriorated into a civil war which cannot be disguised in the western press as anything resembling a military conflict. The US has armed one side intentionally but may have armed both over the years. Now i it is to be on the Iran there is a flimsy pretext that is more compelling than the WMD nonsense that preceded Iraq, we have put soldiers in the theater and now we must protect them. That will provide a surface plausibility until the decision to begin withdrawing by which time we could be fully and deeply engaged in Iran. The Public has lost confidence in the Bush Administration and this could be a test of the power of thew presidency of an historic proportion.

China and the Test

One result of the commitment of the U.S. Government to Iraq and Iran is that there is a vast opening for China and Europe to move forward and expand their respective areas of influence. China has taken bold and constructive(Darfur) steps in Africa. China has also moved ahead with its missile defense program. China may have determined that it needed to separate itself from the class of nations which could be blinded by US air power in the initial stages of an attack or an invasion..in the post Iraq world nearly every nation might reasonably regard the U.S as a potential aggressor per the Bush self defense doctrine. China now has tested the Bush Space defense doctrine and has clearly challenged the U.S. to back its policy of aggression against any potential threat to its use of space. China is now such a threat... but so is France and Britain..the doctrine is so broad it simply provides a pretext for a potential use of force or a selective aggression. China is simply too powerful to fall prey to the kind of in-your face build up and action in Iraq I and II. The U.S. then in part because it has exhausted its resources in the middle east is even poorly positioned to put on a show of force. So finally it seems the U.S. under Bush will have to negotiate with an equal and find a bloodless accommodation to sharing a resource : near Space. Obviously there will be difficulties but technology has pushed us further and further into near space so the resource itself is potentially unlimited.

2008 Clinton- Obama and the Buzz

The dream ticket for 2008 could be Clinton- Obama because these two will dominate the press in the big cities like no other two candidates on either side. They will also dominate international press coverage of the race...so why is this important... 2008 might become the year of the Buzz. The year when a presidential election got fully saturated in the modern media mix which has a new center of gravity in cyberspace.
Video on the web,news on the web, opinion on the web... the Republicans and their shock jock radio saturation...so big in 2004...might not be a blip on the screen in 2008. This might cost in the repeat -after- me -Republican voter machinery...what I call the cloning planet ( ..like in Star Wars..the Clone Army..never mind) radio was used to pound home the most emotion filled diatribes about Democrats, taxes, abortion, and anti gay stuff that perhaps occurred in the entire cycle. Those listeners may now be at their computers or You Tube, MySpace, Skype TV or on their PC phones or listening to techno or gospel on subscription radio while driving... point is the news coverage will matter because it is more difficult to purchase and it could even be... (gasp) news driven... go figure....

Iraq Is Not Vietnam

Iraq is not Vietnam...Iraq is a nation with a huge amount of a critical resource..its role in international commerce will not be overstated rather it emerges as the world turns to more and deeper energy needs. Iran -its dominant neighbor- is energy starved and seemingly bent on regional domination - so Iraq is not Vietnam it is far more critical to world peace. The U.S. invasion of Iraq has been a success. It appears the primary goals have been met: It was a foundation for the reelection of Bush, it provided tens of billions in profits to firms linked or closely linked to the Republican party; it still as the potential to deliver scores of billions in the future to businesses and individuals with ties to the Party and to enhance its fundraising apparatus. The destruction of Saddam was an incidental benefit fitting in with the theory that he or his government was responsible for the terror attacks on 9/11... a belief still held by millions of Americans. There have been economic benefits to the economy as a whole from the spending of an additional 3-400 Billion for the war. The conditions in Iraq were ultimately intended to be the bragging points for the 2008 election based on U.S. military dominance...this seems in doubt at this time but there is still time for change. The war of course crowds out domestic spending especially in States and cities with effective Democratic voting bases. The problem for the Republican Party may be in getting out of Iraq on a schedule consistent with the 2008 elections and the next generation of conflicts which might appear to be useful in the future. Iraq it appears has been far more useful than Vietnam in the context of domestic politics.

Stuck In Iraq

Well Kerry said it and despite the source it seems more true with each passing day - we are stuck in Iraq. First, it is doubtful that we are getting enough of the news from Iraq but the level of violence is clearly worse now than at anytime in the past. The violence is not random, rather it appears to be calculated to drive the civil war to ever higher levels. There are apparently at least two campaigns of violence there which seem to be more problematic than Al Quaeda-- Sunnis against Shiites, and Shiites perhaps for national dominance against Sunnis and to a lesser extent against Kurds. Yet, our government wishes to revisit the theme of fighting terrorists over there rather than over here-- seems like that denial thing at work again. In Vietnam, the historical revision suggested that the so-called enemy there was not ideology but ordinary people fighting an invader. In Iraq, we clearly are an invader. Clearly, we will be blamed for much of the destruction. Clearly, this nearly incredible loss of life has the potential to foster a real brand of terrorism for there has been an enormous loss of life, even the more conservative estimates exceed 100,000. This is a horribly excessive price to pay to take down a government as weak as the Saddam-Baathists.
The costs to the US in the range of 200 Billion for next year for Afghan-Iraq( 600 Millions per day) is also a horrible use of national resources--most of us would rather see that money educate all of our children or universal healthcare or to create new industries here. It's like a menu that offers Chicken soup or the e coli special--and somehow we don't choose the soup.

Iraq Commission Disappoints....

Well if you had low expectations concerning the contribution of the Iraq Commission you might still have been disappointed by its Report. The primary value of the report may well be in its appraisal of the Iraq policy and how much domestic political concerns have apparently affected it. It was startling to see the images and sheer levels of violence portrayed in the Report which appear in stark contrast to the information which has previously been provided to the press and public.
The public would have long ago concluded that Iraq had fallen into a grave and divisive civil war from which there is no apparent recovery based on the sheer breathtaking level of violence. The public would have had a very different reaction to the costs of the war in terms of Iraqi deaths and casualties.. One finds it difficult to imagine an entire world of governments and resources could not have developed a more effective and less deadly method to dismantle the puny military under Saddam's control at the time of the invasion.
The commission disappoints in its primary focus on the domestic political process by calling for resolution of the deployment issue in advance of the presidential primaries in 2008. There is a body of well founded opinion in the American public that much of what has transpired in Iraq: the timing of the invasion, the desperate use of flawed intelligence, the uncorroborated assumption of a Saddam role in 9/11; was in its totality dominated by the re-election of President Bush. This, if even minimally true, would be an omission of Presidential responsibility of an historic proportion. However, the Commission essentially legitimizes this approach by its own politically inspired sense of urgency-- a premature politically motivated onset to this war could certainly be made worse by an artificial timetable for resolution similarly tied to the election cycle. All in all, the new Congress should be even more interested in developing it's own factual basis for Iraq policy development and evaluation--the national mandate of November, 2006 seems to require it.

Iraq has Solutions- but not useful ones

Iraq and the US campaign there have been historic in the contemporary sense--events that could influence over a two year period or until the next election cycle. Yes, even history has been shrunk down to Republican Party dimensions-- so dominant have been the "politics only" style of running the US government. It was a Republican political success -the entire Iraq campaign from the business planning, to the fund raising, to the feeding of contracts to Republican friendly contractors, to the huge war profits pumped into the economy, to the mindless escalation of energy prices--a Party success of unparalleled proportions. Everyone knew that the build up to the invasion was a big lie--most ignored reality and supported the war. It is hypocritical now that so many more condemn the war--but mercifully war has that effect even when the coffins of our soldiers are carefully hidden from view. The military performed well but has provided excellent cover for the political operations that have flourished under the guise of the liberation of Iraq--for as the undeniable facts show-the liberation of Iraq is a mirage and the ethnic warfare for control over the vast wealth of the country has just begun. The future of Iraq is uncertain but there are many , many workable solutions but none have a sufficient relationship to the Republican Party position in the elections of 2008 and that is the problem. The business of the next war may be more important to the elections in 2008 and Iraq may be left to drift unless the Democrats stumble into taking over policy developments -which when done from the Congress-- only portends that things would be even worse in Iraq while the Iraq majority with guns and bullets do the work we hoped they would do with ideas and ballots.