Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Redefining the defining moment.


Lots of comments from just about anyone but McCain or the neocons in the last week have made strong [and well deserved] criticism of the stupid Bush pronouncement that the killing that flared up in Basra and elsewhere was somehow good...was a proof that Iraq in general and Maliki in particular had turned a corner toward self rule.  That is such bald and blatant Bullshit.  Iraq is so unstable and rife with aggrieved hotheads that any two-bit gang with a cache of small arms can ignite a spate of killings in a matter of hours.  But read  this view of the matter by a writer in Asia Times.  Who has ever demonstrated the power to put a prompt and largely effective stop to any battle or killing spree in Iraq? 

The Iranians. 

The only question left to be answered as far as that commentary was concerned was why Teheran was not more boastful in the media about its power-broker status.  One possibility mentioned was:

But the most important Iranian calculation would be not to provoke the Americans unnecessarily by rubbing in the true import of what happened.
...
Conceivably, Tehran would have decided with its accumulated centuries-old Persian wisdom that certain things in life are always best left unspoken, especially stunning successes. Besides, it is far more productive to leave Washington to contemplate over happenings and draw the unavoidable conclusion that if it musters the courage to make that existential choice, Iran can be an immensely valuable factor of stability for Iraq.

So Bush has a completely wrong and self serving take on this "defining moment" of America's misadventures in messypotamia.  Well, we already knew the dictionary was foreign territory to Bush so what is one more botched definition?

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