Up Is Still Down in Bushland

I have been meaning to get this posted for a few days now. I caught up with it last week in the New Yorker from about a month ago -- the article by Seymour Hersh wherein he "explains" the redirection of the Bush Administration's strategy in the Middle East. It is quite literally unbelievable. The shallowness, fickleness, shortsightedness, and dumbass-ness of these guys is breath-taking. There is nothing to hope for now but the clock running out on these guys. Things cannot not improve under the Bushies.

The essay is rather long but lays out the change in strategy resulting from the slowly dawning realization that over-throwing Saddam benefited Iran the most. To fix that, we are now going to support Iran's enemies, who, it so happens, also support the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Got it?

Given the mess we have created, it may be the real strategy is to keep things in a stalemated, destructive mess so nobody "wins" -- except our troops (and mercenaries) are in the middle of it. Nice job. Oh, on and top of that, we may be illegally funding these enemies of Iran as well.

Flynt Leverett, a former Bush Administration National Security Council official, told me that “there is nothing coincidental or ironic” about the new strategy with regard to Iraq. “The Administration is trying to make a case that Iran is more dangerous and more provocative than the Sunni insurgents to American interests in Iraq, when—if you look at the actual casualty numbers—the punishment inflicted on America by the Sunnis is greater by an order of magnitude,” Leverett said. “This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”

Jeesh. Read it all if you can take it.