Iran Update

The President went on Arab satellite TV and denied that the US was about to attack Iran:

"I have said that if they suspend their nuclear program, we will be at the table," Bush said, according to a transcript of the interview the White House released on Friday. "But they have so far refused to do that."

Bush brushed off as "gossip" reports in the Arab press that he has issued orders to senior U.S. military officials to prepare for an attack on Iran at the end of January or in February.

"I would call that empty propaganda," Bush said. "Evidently, there's a lot of gossip in the parts of the country - world that try to scare people about me personally or my country or what we stand for. And that kind of gossip is just what it is. It's gossip. It's baseless gossip."

Somehow, I'm not getting the believing vibe off of him. On the one hand, it's true that, as the Iranian foreign minister said, that the US is too tied up in foreign entanglements to get involved in committing ground troops to Iran. It's also true that Iraq would be totally against any military strikes on its neighbor.

On the other hand, the neocons who are desperate to change the subject on Iraq don't care about the sensitivities of the Iraqis or the lack of manpower. They still believe in this fantasy that you can get in and out, make precision strikes that hit nuclear facilities and nothing else, provoke no radioactive accidents, and cause no retaliation. It's something less than a real-world view.

Robert Byrd is absolutely right, just as he was when he spoke in that empty chamber before the war with Iraq:

It is deeply troubling to see the U.S. Senate joining the chest-pounding and saber-rattling of the Bush administration. I am no apologist for the Iranian regime, anymore than I was for Saddam Hussein, but I fear that we may become entangled in another bloody quagmire. We have been down this path before. We have seen all too clearly where it leads.

The Senate has refused to learn the lessons of history. And just maybe, they just want the war as much as the neocons:

When I asked Hersh who wants to bomb Iran, he said, "Ironically there is a lot of pressure coming from Democrats. Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Edwards have all said we cannot have a nuclear-armed Iran. Clearly the pressure from Democrats is a reflection of - we might as well say it - Israeli and Jewish input." He added the obvious: "a lot of money comes to the Democratic campaigns" from Jewish contributors.

But while Democrats argue that we must "do something" about an Iranian nuclear threat, Hersh says the White House has concluded their own effort to convince Americans that Iran poses an imminent threat has "failed." Apparently the public that bought the story of WMD in Iraq is now singing the classic Who song, "Won't Get Fooled Again."

I don't know if the front-runners are at all committed to military action, but they are cautious to appear "sensible" to the foreign policy community, in other words completely un-sensible. And while Hillary has signed on to Jim Webb's bill blocking funding for military action against Iran, she also supported the Kyl-Lieberman bill giving Bush a back door to attack. And it concerns me greatly that Wes Clark is indrectly endorsing Kyl-Lieberman because he can't criticize the candidate he endorsed:

Last week, Hillary voted for a non-binding resolution that designates the odious Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in order to strengthen our diplomatic hand. (emphasis mine) On Monday, she joined Senator Jim Webb in co-sponsoring a bill that would prohibit the use of funds for military action in Iran without specific authorization by Congress.

I support Hillary in both these votes. She is committed to ending the unilateralism of the Bush-Cheney administration. She is a strong supporter of direct nuclear talks with Iran, because she believes that direct dialogue with our adversaries is a sign of strength and confidence, and a prerequisite to achieving America's goals and objectives.

What the...

Is the guy who created StopIranWar.com really falling for the "strengthening our diplomatic hand" nonsense?

This concerns me more than ever that, as Byrd said, we are sleepwalking into another conflict.