Texan Poker Bluff and Persian Chess Moves
By K Gajendra Singh
“The arrogance of military power has led to a grave crisis – and to a decline of the United States’ role and influence.” Mikhail Gorbachev.
“The president is living in a dream world,” US Sen. Barbara Boxer.
01/22/07 “ICHBlog” — On Iran , US Administration has reached the pre-Iraq invasion rhetoric level of 2003 , when against the UN Charter and world opinion ,President George Bush decided to invade Iraq after having assembled a naval armada and air and land forces in the region ,cheerlead by a subservient US media . Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are accusing Tehran of developing nuclear weapons and exporting terrorism, just as Saddam Hussein was allegedly doing. Iran is also not abiding by U N resolutions on its nuclear weapons program, which, like Iraq then, it denies it has. UN Nuclear Agency in Vienna has found no proof of a weapons program .Neither there was one in Iraq in 2003. Almost all accusations made by US President , his deputy and others , exaggerated by US corporate owned media proved to be false.
But after 4 years of blunders and stupidity , the situation is unlike March, 2003 , with an isolated Bush administration now under siege having become unpopular and discredited at home and with allies abroad .In Iran it faces a people with a long history of survival beginning with Alexander and his uncouth Macedonian hordes , Arabs ,Turks , Mongols and others. And they succeeded in civilizing most of them.
Even the new Chairman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee , John D. Rockefeller (D) took umbrage at the Bush administration’s increasingly hostile barrage against Iran .The efforts to portray it as a growing threat were uncomfortably reminiscent of the rhetoric about Iraq. “To be quite honest, I’m a little concerned that it’s Iraq again,” Senator Rockefeller said in an interview on 19 January. “This whole concept of moving against Iran is bizarre.” “I don’t think that policymakers in this administration particularly understand Iran,” he added. Rockefeller, a moderate , with good access to most classified intelligence about the threat from Tehran felt that US agencies still knew little about either Iran’s internal dynamics or its intentions in the Middle East.
On how President Bush has dealt with the threat of Islamic fundamentalism since 119 attacks, Rockefeller believed that the campaign against international terrorism was “still a mystery” to the President. “I don’t think he understands the world,” he said. “I don’t think he’s particularly curious about the world. I don’t think he reads like he says he does.” He added, “Every time he’s read something he tells you about it, I think.”
Over Bush’s policy of ‘Surge ‘ ie sending additional 21,500 troops to Iraq ,hot words are being exchanged between Democrat party ,resurgent after Bush’s Republican party debacle in November elections and the White House. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are backing a nonbinding Senate Democratic resolution declaring that “It is not in the national interest of the United States to deepen its military involvement in Iraq, particularly by escalating the US military force presence in Iraq.”
Pelosi warned that President Bush was wading too deeply into Iraq .It should not be “an obligation of the American people in perpetuity.” She added that Bush “has dug a hole so deep he can’t even see the light on this. It’s a tragedy. It’s a stark blunder.” White House spokeswoman Dana Perino retorted that Pelosi’s comments were “poisonous,” stating that Bush feels that once additional troops reached Iraq and once they’re in battle , the Congress won’t cut off funds.
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