Josh Marshall warns us about what appears to be the President’s march toward war against Iran:
I’ve said this before. But perhaps it seems like hyperbole. So I’ll say it again. The president’s interests are now radically disjoined from the country’s. We can handle a setback like Iraq. It really is a big disaster. But America will certainly surive it. President Bush — in the sense of his legacy and historical record — won’t. It’s all Iraq for him. And Iraq is all disaster. So, from his perspective (that is to say, through the prism of his interests rather than the country’s — which he probably can’t separate) reckless gambits aimed at breaking out of this ever-tightening box make sense.
Think of it like this. He’s a death row prisoner concocting athousand-to-one plan to break out of prison. For him, those are goododds. The rest of us are doing three months for disorderly conduct. Andhe’s trying to rope us into his harebrained scheme. Like I said, hisinterests are very different from ours.
Speak up. We’re on the edge of the abyss.
In November, the American people made it very clear to this administration that the war in Iraq should end sooner rather than later. In January, the President thumbed his nose by doing the exact opposite - escalating the war. Now, as the pieces come into place, it looks as though this President may be angling to escalate the war beyond the borders of Iraq and into Iran.
Setting aside the moral implications of this action (which are significant, as this would be an immoral escalation of an immoral war), what the President is doing is gambling with the future of the world for the next half century. The consequences of such a war would likely be catastrophic for all of us: The collapse of the oil supply from the middle east; the collapse of the global economy; a generation of chaos throughout the middle east and beyond; the end of the way of life the developed world has come to know alongside immeasurable suffering in the developing world.
I will echo Josh Marshall’s warning. If you care about the future of your children and grandchildren, oppose this President before it is too late.
