It could not be more clear that the Bush administration is planting as many stories as possible in the MSM to make a case for invading Iran. "Let a thousand Judith Miller's bloom" seems to be their desperate and cynical battle cry.
As General Odom, Reagan's NSA director, wrote in the Washington Post the other day, victory is no longer an option. Instead of pulling out like any sane administration would have done months ago, the new Bush plan seems to be to start a proxy war against Iran inside Iraq. Even the Bush administration realizes that their so-called surge is a bloody exercise in futility and ass-covering. And yet they don't seem to realize that the Shiite militias are just about the only glue left in much of non-Kurdish Iraq. Sadr City used to be Baghdad's worst slum. Now it's one of the few relatively safe areas in town. Yes, the Shiite militias are targeting our soldiers - just like the Sunni insurgents. We are enemies to all and they will all keep targeting our unfortunate soldiers until we get them the hell out. It is despicable of this Bush regime to put our young, all-volunteer army in such a desperate and futile morass.
The larger question is what choices do we have and what choices do the Iraqis have. The Shiite militias have always had Iranian benefactors. We can be upset but what other horses do we have to bet on? Should we reanimate the Baath party and prop up another minority Sunni strongman to rule again by terror?
Iran has been meddling in Iraq since well before we started the war and unlike us they are actually very good at it. I've written here before that Iraq has turned into a kind of East Berlin after the war only now instead of the Soviets we're playing cat and mouse with the Iranians.
Bush has already got us up to our necks in enemies inside the country. Does he really think that picking a fight with a much more formidable adversary in the middle of getting our asses kicked is any sort of road to victory? The U.S. and Iran share many common goals in Iraq and we need a powerful, local ally in this mess. We need it bad. We need it like Neil Young needs singing lessons.
Ordinary Americans have to be vocal and united on this. Bush is a drunk driver. We need to tell Congress to take away his keys.
--Trey Ellis