Steve Clemons is reading the tea leaves and speculating that the President’s escalation of the war in Iraq may be far, far larger than he is letting on:
“Washington intelligence, military and foreign policy circles are abuzz today with speculation that the President, yesterday or in recent days, sent a secret Executive Order to the Secretary of Defense and to the Director of the CIA to launch military operations against Syria and Iran.
The President may have started a new secret, informal war against Syria and Iran without the consent of Congress or any broad discussion with the country.”
It appears that the Democrats in the Senate may be catching on to this, however. In Condi Rice’s testimony before the Senate today, Republican Chuck Hagel pulled forward an historical analogy:
“Some of us remember 1970, Madame Secretary, and that was Cambodia, and when our government lied to the American people and said we didn’t cross the border going into Cambodia. In fact we did. I happen to know something about that, as do some on this committee.
So, Madame Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it’s very, very dangerous. Matter of fact, I have to say, Madame Secretary, that I think this speech given last night by this president represents the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it’s carried out. I will resist it.”
Furthermore, it appears that Senator Biden may be setting the stage for the “I” word to enter the conversation should Mr. Bush expand the war beyond Iraq into Syria and Iran:
“Madame Secretary, I just want to make it clear, speaking for myself, that if the president concluded he had to invade Iran or Iraq in pursuit of these — or Syria — in pursuit of these networks, I believe the present authorization granted the president to use force in Iraq does not cover that, and he does need congressional authority to do that. I just want to set that marker.”
Of course, if the administration can provoke the Iranians into attacking US, say, by breaking into their consulate and arresting their diplomats, then I suppose that whole congressional authorization point would be moot.
The time is now to get on our knees and pray that cooler heads would prevail in order to avert even more unnecessary wars and more suffering. History has already seen one too many Neros…
Bush to the American people: Bite Me:
US President George W Bush has ordered more than 20,000 additional troops to Iraq, as part of a new strategy for tackling the conflict there.
As expected, a staggering electoral defeat was not enough to get the message across to the President. Not that I expect it to do much good, but all we can do at this point is to continue to keep the pressure on by going to the streets, lobbying our elected representatives, and working to elect leaders (including a President in less than two years) who will work to end this crazy war.
