Sanity in Iran and N. Korea?
by Marie
It will be many years before we discover the full extent of the damage done to this country and the world by the Bush Administration. As bad as the Iraq adventure will be for us, in foreign affairs the greatest damage will be the US cannot be trusted and therefore, our ability to negotiate agreements has been damaged for years if not decades.
The Bush Administration operates in only three modes. 1) Fuck you, we can go it alone. 2) Give me what I want or you’ll be sorry. 3) Give me what I want first and then I’ll give you what you want. How many times will the Charlie Brown Democrats fall for the GOP football trick before they “get it?“ How many times will the UN? The most rational actors in the world when it comes to dealing with BushCo seem to be Iran and N. Korea. Iran knows that if they give up their nuke program that the European Union will do nothing when BushCo goes after Iran. N. Korea isn’t giving up anything until they get what they want first. Who do we think they are? Democrats? Those bozos that expected GWB to get UN authorization before invading Iraq? Expected Condi to turn over the requested documents on Bolton? Expected GWB not to use a recess appointment for UN Ambassador? Expected GWB to fire anyone involved in the outing of Plame? And on and on.
Bush welches. And when welching isn’t enough, Bush lies. His gang respects no law that is inconvenient for them. Would anyone but an idiot willingly negotiate anything with people like that?
While Bush wreaks havoc and creates disaster everywhere he goes, the Vichy Democrats hang out in “no man’s land.” After forty years in the desert, they’ve come to believe that the way to the promised land is to find more dangerous enemies that are being ignored by the GOP and that they would go after. Hence they talk endlessly about the danger posed to us by Iran and N. Korea. This strategy in 1970 would have had them shouting, “What about the USSR?” “Why aren’t we going after them?” They could join the rightwing nutcases that have long thought that challenging nuclear power states is rational and not suicidal.
Bush isn’t going to start a war with N. Korea. They can’t get excited about any country without huge stores of natural resources. They don’t want to shake a hornet’s nest that may contain nukes. They’re banking on N. Korea not being suicidal enough to launch a first strike. And if they are wrong on this, that the first strike would not hit the US.
Bush does want to take on Iran. The rush is on to see who gets there first. Iran armed with a nuke or Bush extricated enough from Iraq to launch a war against Iran? Those 38% approval numbers on Bush’s handling of Iraq may have given Iran a bit of breathing room. But with the DINOs and other Democrats continuing to make the case for war against Iran, they shouldn’t breathe too easily.
If Americans want to get Iran and N. Korea to the negotiating table, they must first find a way to convince them that we negotiate in good faith. A good place to start would be to exterminate from DC the Bushes, the Neo-Cons, the GOP and all the warmongering Democrats. It would also be the cheapest option. Not that I expect Americans to value fiscal prudence enough to resoundingly reject dumping billions of bucketfuls of dollars down the MIC sinkhole.