Bush is ostensibly gathering all living secretaries of Defense and State to discuss Iraq. BUT IS THIS REALLY THE CASE!? RIGHTWING NUTHOUSE:
This could be, as some invitees have speculated, window dressing for the President’s continuing efforts to sell the Iraq War to the American people. Or, it could be something much more ominous.I think this speculation is VERY interesting - and very plausible. Stay tuned...
Following on the heels of last weekend’s leak to Der Speigle about our contingency plans to bomb Iranian nuclear sites, this gathering could be one more signal we are sending to the Iranians that we are deathly serious about preventing them from building a nuclear weapon. Since Iran is going to be on the agenda, the President may want to gage what kind of support he can expect from Democratic heavy hitters if he feels it necessary to escalate the crisis, probably within a few weeks.
There are "tools" available to the military and, therefore to the president that could be used to encourage the Iranian leadership to abandon their pursuit of nuclear technology. Unfortunately, no other country besides the US has this capability, making blame shifting difficult (ie., we couldn't blame France). So, in order for this to work, the president must convince those of the "spin" party to take at least some measure of responsibility. It will be this last task that will be the most difficult. I wish him luck.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read that Bush was getting all past DoD guys together, the first thing I thought was that it has to do with Iran.
ReplyDeleteWhy would he need help from DoD guys on Iraq, when we are already in the process of scaling back troops?
Question: How is Sharons illness going to effect Israel plans?
pasto - you were right.
ReplyDeleteas far as how this event will effect things:
israel's enemies will take advantage of any sign of weakness.
if the israeli political leadership/(transtitional or otherwise) is seen as weak then hamas/i.j./al-aksa/hizballa/syria and iran will attack.
We need Netanyahu.
ReplyDeleteOk, wait a minute. Maybe that was a stupid thing to say. I was just heard Podhoretz on the radio saying "everyone knows" you can't trust what comes out of Netanyahu's mouth.
ReplyDeleteWhy would he say that?
jpod is a putz sometimes.
ReplyDeleteI just remember reading a review of a book Netanyahu wrote on how to deal with terrorists that made absolute sense to me.
ReplyDeleteIt always seemed to me that he was the best leader behind Sharon.
Although, I hadn't thought of Sharansky.
I like that one. He won't compromise on Freedom. He might be the best one.