Cheneyism Spreads To Israel

Iran is in the midst of political uprising that has revealed a collective desire for more moderate leadership. The mass demonstrations and calling out of the clerical leaders seems to be a good thing. You can see why the country's younger and liberal (socially) populace is so important. The young Iranians could serve as crucial catalyst for capitalizing on America's use of soft power with Iran to unwind their nuclear ambitions.

Leave it to the neocon elements in the U.S. and their Israeli counterparts to find a problem with the hopeful signs in Iran. First it was Diane Pletka's column in the NYT that threw cold water on the notion that the current upheaval will lead to anything good in the end.

Then there was this piece in the WSJ (s/r) that corroborates what the neocon line should be on this matter. Any signs of moderation in Iran are bad for the bomb-bomb-Iran-crowd. Case in point:

Meir Dagan, chief of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, told a closed Knesset ommittee hearing that Mr. Ahmadinejad's reputation as a Holocaust-denying rabble-rouser makes it easier for Israel to enlist international support against Iran's nuclear program, a committee member said. A victory for Mr. Ahmadinejad's moderate challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, in last week's presidential elections would have presented Israel with "a graver problem," Mr. Dagan said.

You see, we need crazy Ahmadinejad to stay in power so there is a reason to sell the hard line approach to Iran.

"Both of them pose the same threat. But it's better for Israel that you have a leader [in Iran] with a very dangerous ideology who speaks clearly so that nobody can ignore him," said Knesset deputy speaker Danny Danon, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party. A more careful, soft-spoken Iranian president who promised better relations with the West "would have made it harder for us to recruit the world to our side," Mr. Danon added.

You got that? More crazy leadership equals better chance of starting yet another war in the Middle East. That's what the crazies in our neck of the world think. Good if you are an oil company or a defense contractor. Not so good if your son or daughter is the one that will be thrown into another needless military engagement.

A Fitting Send Off From The Iraqis

It took a shoe lobbing journalist to remind us what a failure the Iraq "war" has been.

Of course there are other ways of showing one's disdain for turning a country of 25 million into a failed free market laboratory. Nothing says it quite like a pair of size ten loafers hurtling toward your head.

Obama and the Powell Doctrine

It's a start.

Colin Powell's complicity in the run up to the Iraq war has never set well with me. He is a soldier's soldier and bucking the chain of command was not in the cards that fateful day in February of 2003. A courageous act like crossing party lines in a moment of attention grabbing honesty did a lot to bring people like me back into the Powell's circle of trust. Now that Powell has gone forward with his endorsement the dynamic of the race continues to change in Obama's favor. As I've been saying the way to win this election is through the Powell doctrine of overwhelming force.

The Powell doctrine in practice.
The Obama campaign has indeed continued to generate the momentum that will build into an overwhelming force come election day. It is fitting that the man who championed the strategy is adding to that wave by jumping party lines and endorsing Obama. Combine the nod from Colin Powell with the ginormous cash hall the campaign raised in September and the force grows. Add in the cascade of endorsements of major newspapers regardless of past political alignment of their editorial boards and the unstoppable nature of the force is apparent. By the time November rolls around an election victory will be inevitable. No matter what crack pot charges are lobbed by Team McCain and regardless of GOP attempts to suppress voter turnout.

Two questions arise from Powell endorsement
Will the McCain attack machine be rendered useless in the wake of Powell's support? If not will the attack dogs raise the question of why a four star general endorsed a terrorist for president?

In an unforeseen twist to the story did Powell just launch himself onto the short list of potential candidates for Secretary of State if Obama is elected? I may be half way to accepting Powell's mea culpa for his disappointing performance during the run up the Iraq war. I'm not sure if his credibility has been restored one hundred percent though. Still even the thought of Powell serving the Obama administration in some other advisory capacity is an intriguing thought. Maybe a role in unwinding the Iraq occupation would be fitting.

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Laura On George

Someone had to do it. Laura Bush was given the distinct honor of introducing her husband the Prez to the RNC tonight. I was curious to see what accomplishments she would highlight. She offered up the usual references to No Child Left Behind, African Aids Relief (PEPFAR) and some others.

There was no avoiding Iraq or Afghanistan so she used broad strokes when it came to this chapter in the Bush presidency:

"In Afghanistan and Iraq 50 milllion people are now living in freedom"

Yes freedom is certainly on the march. This report from the BBC today updates the story of a 23 year old Afghani student condemned to death for downloading an article about women and Islam from the internet.

I suggest the next president dust off copies of the books Ghost Wars and Imperial Hubris and read up on the region that will be occupying most of their time while in office.

Visiting Iraq Has Made McCain Stupid

What will Obama prove by visiting Iraq at this point in time? McCain has been using Obama's lack of taxpayer funded campaign stops to Iraq as a critique on his readiness to be president. The McCain camp is trying to make the case that Obama hasn't been to see the mess we've created in Iraq firsthand so he isn't prepared to deal with the situation. McCain even went as far as to offer an invitation to his likely opponent to join him on a visit to Iraq and referred to Obama's subsequent rejection as "fundamental misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq". Obama was also criticized for not sitting down with General Petraeus in that same McCain harangue.

McCain as we recall has been to Iraq recently. In fact the more he goes the less he seems to know about the situation or its complexities. His last trip ended up looking like a taxpayer funded campaign photo op. It of course was highlighted with McCain repeatedly confusing the nature of Sunni Al Queda and Shia Iran to the dismay of Joe Lieberman. Just today McCain misstated the troop levels in Iraq as being at pre-surge levels when they are clearly not. Further devaluing McCain's Iraq wisdom was his insistence a couple of days ago that Mosul was very calm the very same day that a suicide bombing was carried out, in Mosul. I'm not even going to go into details on last year's staged Baghdad market place theatrics. Maybe McCain should just remain stateside and get briefed on Iraq by his campaign advisers or Lindsey Graham. They could start by learning him the difference between Sunni and Shia factions in Iraq. God knows the current president would have done himself and everyone a favor by figuring that out before invading Iraq. Better yet McCain could go to the internets and read a good Iraq related blog like Informed Comment.

Now the Obama campaign is signaling that a trip to Iraq is in the works. Obama doesn't need to go to Iraq right now or sit down with a politically slanted General to prove his mettle on Iraq. What he does need to do is keep Iraq in the spotlight during the campaign and continue being smart and informed on the subject. It will also be prudent to keep the pressure on McCain and jump on him whenever he makes one of his frequent gaffes or crazy statements on Iraq like the one offered up today.

Appeasing the Saudis

There are those who would say that groveling to the Saudi King to increase oil production is a job below the pay grade of the US President. The Prez was in Saudi Arabia Friday doing just that because he has always touted his good relationship with the Saudis as leverage when it comes to oil prices. The visit with King Abdullah turned out to be a showcase of how the current administration is appeasing the Saudis. He just wanted one small thing to hold up as a reason why he is not as irrelevant as the rest of the world believes him to be. After reading the headlines yesterday I can't tell what actually transpired. The Saudis announced that they had already boosted produciton after Bush left but that move was not in response to the President's request. The Financial Times reported on the visit as a success with this quote:

The move came as Mr Bush faced intense political pressure at home provide relief from soaring petrol prices ahead of the summer driving season, but he received little credit for the Saudi announcement on Friday.

There were other MSM sources taking that angle including the Washington Times (surprise) and Reuters. The other side of the petrodollar was that the Bush was actually rebuffed by the Saudis. The balance of the reporting I read was that he was blown off. The BBC reported this when it came to a new production increase:

Saudi officials said they were already meeting demand, and had
increased production by 300,000 barrels per day earlier this month.

We are in such a bad position when it comes to oil dependency and respect in the Middle East that having to depend on what mood a Saudi king is in has become a big foreign policy deal. Until things change we'll have less and less leverage. With that in mind your government did manage to reach a deal on allowing the Saudis to develop a nuclear program for energy production. I can't shake the feeling that this is a subtle way of allowing the Saudis to accidentally acquire a nuclear capability to counter the moves being attempted by Iran to do the same thing. In the end you'll still pay $4.00 for a gallon of gasoline.

In review Bush went to Saudi Arabia and was rebuffed on his oil production request but the Saudis got assurances from your government on its continued support of Saudi hegemony in the region. They ended up with US support of a nuclear program, more weapons sales and continued protection from Iranian influence on the backs of the US military. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. They may not be the our enemies but they're hardly our staunchest ally in the Middle East.

Petroblogging: Greed's Oily Residue

Oil and all the woes it has been causing us seem to be ingrained in the collective conscious of America right now. I think the McClatchy news website will need to add a separate section just for oil stories the way things are going. Fighting for oil, crying about the price of gas and abject paranoia about speculative plots are just some of the noise we're getting inundated with lately. These things speak to the power of the petrodollar which leads to my attempt at petroblogging.

There Will Be Blood in Congress
Big Oil and steadily increasing gas prices have created all sorts of problems for the average minivan driver. On the legislative and policy side there are multiple "fixes" being thrown into the mix in Congress. The Dems are thinking of a multi-faceted approach that includes a windfall profits tax on oil companies (this makes no sense), capping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, taking away tax breaks and cracking down on energy market speculation. A windfall by definition is a one-time increase in profits. The profits Exxon and company are seeing are the normal thing now. So why would a windfall profits tax be applicable in today's situation?

The GOP is looking almost exclusively from the supply side with proposals that call for increased drilling (including in ANWR) and refinery building and the normal emphasis on converting resources to cash. The only proposal that will get widespread support is the cap on the strategic reserve. Politico has a really good run down on the various legislative proposals that are presented in a Factcheck.org fashion.

Is the Gas Tax Holiday Dead?
File this one under Panderer in Chief or When Economists Attack. The McCain/Clinton plan to lower gas prices for the summer driving season using voodoo economics has been fading in popularity, and that's not just my impression. Does it have to do with every economist in the world calling it a bad idea? It seems that the McCain advisers that hatched the plan ignored the cold hard facts of tax incidence theory and went straight for the lame gimmickry of the appeal of a tax holiday. Hillary of course glommed on to the gas tax holiday looking for anyway to get an edge on Obama. Now that she is all but cooked in the race for the nomination, her support of a holiday from gasoline reality doesn't mean much. Enough rational introspection from the media and even average citizens has appeared to relegate this one to the silly season column.

Bush Off to Visit His Saudi Overlords
While we are left to guess what the price at the Circle K station will hit tomorrow the Prez heads off to the Middle East to survey the damage of seven years of failed foreign policy. Every Bush or Cheney Mid East trip of course ends with the requisite stop in Saudi Arabia to engage in royal ass kissing. maybe this trip will be different. It would be nice to see someone going to bat for us and maybe ask the Saudis to increase oil production. Is it possible that W. will threaten to pull out of Iraq and let the crazy Iranians increase their influence even more? Will King Abdullah be scared shitless about growing Shia influence in the region stirring up unrest amongst the population of Shias that inhabit the oil rich eastern part of his kingdom? Maybe the King will choose to hold hands with W. and buy his allegiance with another shiny sword.

It's Not a Bubble
Professor Krugman takes the speculation on speculation to task in yesterday's NYT column. The theory that energy speculators are behind the rapid increase in oil and gas prices has taken hold recently and for good reason. The guys making all of the money on the oil boon are the ones closely connected to the markets and traders that seemingly create the frenzy that is pushing up the price of oil. Krugman refutes this notion with sound economic reasoning. His contention is that speculation requires hoarding of supply to be effective and currently the supplies of oil are at normal or below average levels. Sorry, the oil companies are easy to hate but our dilemma is driven by good ol' supply and demand principles. If we could only get that Iraq occupation thing to work maybe the price would go down.

We're Americans and we ain't drivin' 55 or taking the damn bus to work.

A Plus Up for Petraeus

General Petraeus always the loyal soldier will be taking over Central Command later this year. With General Ray Odierno moving up from number two take the reigns in Iraq the "smash brothers" will have complete control of the Middle East Theater. Obviously the appointments signal the administration's intent to change absolutely nothing in Iraq but, that shouldn't come as a surprise.

In terms of U.S policy toward Iran this can only mean a greater chance of some military intervention in the near term. It has been said in some media outlets that the current CentCom chief Admiral Fallon was standing in the way of escalating the conflict with Iran. With Fallon out of the picture and the potential for a President McCain (I cringe) to be in charge in early 2009 the outlook for more war looks great.

As for Iraq, country is is great hands. With Odierno in charge the number of cordon and search missions will probably hit all time highs. This guy has a history of being a relentless hard-ass and at times his tactics haven't meshed the counterinsurgency plans. This From yesterday's McClatchy report:

Many believe that Odierno, the III Corps commander in Fort Hood,
Texas, redeemed himself during his stint as the No. 2 commander in Iraq
last year. He came to the post under a cloud of controversy after some
charged that his strong-arm approach to warfare lacked the nuance that
counterinsurgency required.

Indeed, in his previous post as the
commander of U.S. troops in northern Iraq, he called for aggressive
tactics against the insurgency, at times inflaming tensions between
U.S. troops and Iraqis.

Petraeus will most likely be too busy running for vice president to play good cop to Odierno. Eventually in Iraq the money and guns won't be enough to keep the Sunni militias in line and Odierno will have to resort to more bad cop policies to pacify any unrest. All the more reason taking on Iran at the same time is not a good idea.

Proxy War Not Going Well Either

The regular war in Iraq is bad enough now we have to worry about some proxy war. According to the administration, specifically Ambassador Ryan Crocker the U.S is also engaged in proxy war with Iran. In an interview Friday Crocker lamented Iran's role in screwing up the path to a stable Iraq and meddling in Iraqi affairs. The problems in Iraq apparently aren't all related to the U.S. occupation. Iran's support of Shiite militias is a major point of contention for the U.S. As reported in the Sunday New York Times Crocker directly called out the Iranian interference in the interview:

While Bush administration officials have long denounced what they have
described as Iran’s meddling in Iraq, Mr. Crocker’s language was
unusually strong, reflecting fresh concern about what he described in
Congressional testimony this week as Iran’s role in supplying militias
with training and weapons, including rockets used in recent attacks on
the Green Zone, in Baghdad.

Although he claimed the U.S. is not engaging in an proxy type involvement against Iran. That seems to contradict the piles of cash and weapons we have been providing the Sunni groups in Al Anbar. Those groups would be a hedge against overt Iranian and Shiite influence in Iraq once th U.S. begins to decrease it's presence there. So this would serve as a proxy to Iran's proxy, I guess. While Iran is meddling in everyones business in the Middle East none of our allies inte region are lending much of hand, Crocker's complaints again from the Times article:

During the interview, Mr. Crocker accused Iran of meddling in
Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza, in addition to Iraq. He also faulted
Iraq’s Arab neighbors for refusing to help, noting that a promised
Saudi Arabian Embassy had yet to materialize.

Maybe the U.S. should consider engaging Iran in a proxy nature and get our so called Sunni allies like Saudi Arabia to get of there asses and spend some petrodollars on staunching Iran's influence in their own backyard. Doing nothing to even the score while the oil producing fat cats sit around and watch is no way to run a proxy war.

Tommy Franks Was Right

Another one of the architects of the Iraq invasion has been making the rounds with the latest book full of excuses. Straight from the "where are the war architects" file comes Douglas Feith. If you know the narrative of how we got into the biggest foreign policy mess ever then Feith's name is a familiar one. He was most recently on the Diane Rehm Show this past Thursday. I've been trying not to hear any of the lame-ass garbage Feith has been pawning off to respected media outlets like 60 minutes but I gave in and listened to the whole one hour segment.

Surprisingly or maybe not Feith has been pushing the idea that the real blame for what went wrong lies with Colin Powell. What I gathered from the interview is that He thinks Powell should have done more to stop the civilian war planners from going ahead with the invasion. To further his point Feith basically stated to Rehm during the interview that if then Secretary of State Powell had a better plan he didn't let on. I come away with this summary. Rumsfeld, Feith, Wolofwitz and the other neocons used bizarro world logic to set off an ill-conceived and ill-planned invasion of Iraq. Colin Powell is to blame because it was up to him to stop them because they didn't know any better. There is a mountain of evidence out there that says they wouldn't have listened anyway.

Feith asserts that his account is based on the record and that's what gives his book real juice. Feith also boasts that the planning was a collaborative effort in which all points of view were entertained. You don't have to go any further than the pages of the book Fiasco by Tom Ricks to see how Feith's "on the record" account contrasts starkly with what actually happened. In the chapter of Fiasco titled "The Run Up", Ricks covers how the lack of attention to objective input from other sources soured the war planning. There were two very large scale and comprehensive reports created by dozens of security experts, military planners and Mideast scholars. Both of these studies where ignored by Feith's office. Ricks summarizes this phenomenon in his book:

"What is remarkable is that again and again during the crucial months before the invasion, such warnings from experts went unheeded-or even unwelcome. Almost no Middle Eastern experts inside the military were consulted on the war plan, in part because the plan was produced on a very close hold basis that involved few people , and even then only parts of it were shown to most of those involved."

Despite the non-attentiveness to the counsel of all of these experts Feith still defends one of the
biggest blunders of the occupation, disbanding the Iraqi army. He claims in his "on the record" version of events that military planners agreed with this decision. The historic facts recounted in Fiasco point to military experts stressing that the Iraqi army not be disbanded. In December of 2002 a report produced by military experts at the Pentagon (a third report in as many months) stated unequivocally the error of folding the Iraqi army after the invasion:

"...To tear apart the army in the war's aftermath could lead to the
destruction of one the only forces of unity within the society."

Feith's claim that the Iraqi army was already broken and had to be rebuilt clearly contradicted the advice being given at the time of the run upto the war. This is just one major example of the incompetent way Feith's office handled the planning and execution of the invasion and
subsequent occupation of Iraq. In the end it was the incompetence from key war planners like Feith that lead to the abysmal failures that have morphed into the never ending disaster that is the occupation of Iraq. General Tommy Franks is quoted in Fiasco as summing up Feith's level of competence with this morsel, "the dumbest fucking guy on the planet". I don't know if I'd go that far but he has a point.

Feith's book smells like pure revisionist crap if you ask me. The only good that may come out of his new book is that he plans to donate all the proceeds to charity. I think a charity that supports the families of fallen Iraq war veterans would be a good start.

The Petraeus Take Away

We're not going anywhere anytime soon. General Petraeus made that abundantly clear with this automated response at today's hearing as transcribed by the Washintgon Post:

At the end of that period, he said, he has recommended starting "a
process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and, over
time, determine when we can make recommendations for further
reductions." He strongly counseled against setting any deadlines for
withdrawal.

I called Central Command Headquarters and they have this message playing on the answering machine so they got the memo. Maybe we'll know more in December.

Petraeus is Coming! Petraeus is Coming!

Another six months and another status report from the king of the surge. General Petraeus makes his way to Capital Hill tomorrow to give his latest assessment of the conditions in Iraq. I can't imagine anything new is going to be divulged by either the general or U.S. ambassador to the fortified Green Zone, Ryan Crocker.

General Petraeus has already gone on record as saying not enough political progress has been made by the Iraqi government. I almost wanted to throw in the adjective nascent before the words Iraqi government but by now the new car smell has worn off. That statement made a couple of weeks ago will probably be fodder for inquiring minds at the Congressional hearing and should elicit some tough questioning. I'm sure Petraeus and Crocker will be ready for the onslaught and will repel any suggestions that all is not well with healthy doses of "surge must be given more time to work" medicine. American's will once again be told that we need to stay in Iraq even if it means sacrificing more lives and resources for a failed policy.

The real success of surge has been its ability to buy more time on the political front for the administration. Tomorrow's performances are intended to extend the deployment beyond the election and pass it off to the next commander in chief. I know it's a cynical outlook but god dammit can you blame me?

The Lessons of Basra

The dust is finally starting to settle in Basra after last week's ill fated offensive by the Iraqi government and their U.S. handlers. The amount of devastation and carnage resulting from the uprising or whatever that was is a harsh reality check on the state of our deployment in Iraq. As usual McClatchy has been on point with its coverage of the situation on the ground. The plan to de-surge or stand down (because they have to stand up) has hit a new snag.

As part of its post-surge plan, the Pentagon planned to reduce troop levels by one brigade a month, thin out its presence in Iraq and lean more heavily on Iraqi forces. But the Basra offensive has some in the U.S. military fretting that Iraq's forces, while better than they were six months ago, cannot fully defend their communities.

An unintended consequence of the surge has been the reliance on bottom up self governance to claim reconciliation has been occurring. As an example the Sunni awakening and relative calmness in the Kurdish north has been sited by surge fans as proof of its success. Not too quick. What has been visited upon Iraqis this week in the form of a proto-civil war is this lesson: correlation is not causation. Didn't the event of the past week demonstrate that the cease fire issued by Sadr was the real reason behind the success of the surge? The Maliki offensive turned into a clash between central governance (the original plan) and local power centers like militias. The top down approach didn't fair too well.

Relying on local players to maintain stability gave the surge an appearance of success. The problem is that this stability was proven to be a mirage once the interests of Sadrists no longer lined up with the central government. When the decision was made to break that calm, whoever is to blame is almost irrelevant, the stability evaporated and fighting erupted. When the Iraqi forces were not enough to quell the Shia fighters the U.S. forces had no choice but to "Fallujahize" the city with air strikes and artillery. The after effects of that offensive are turning the residents of the once somewhat allied south into haters. Another piece from McClatchy details the carnage resulting from the air strikes and the collective dismay of Iraqi hearts and minds being lost. It seems that the surge is approaching the end of its shelf life before the stated goals were ever realized.

Five Years of Lies

"When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth."

Khaled Hosseini
The Kite Runner


The war in Iraq was built on lies and false bravado. From the tales of errant WMD to the not so subtle conflating of Saddam and the terror of September 11th. The mission accomplished moments, last throes, fight them there and surge is working chicanery have had five years to obscure the truth of what has happened in Iraq. Any meaningful debate on Iraq policy must be navigated around the detritus of talking points and bumper sticker schlock. Almost every pronouncement from the administration on progress must be interpreted with either skepticism or outright disbelief. Awakening counsels are really the result of bribing one side of a future civil war. The the reconstruction of a country into an economic success has morphed into a failed free market laboratory. The spread of democracy in the Middle East has been revealed as an entreaty to ethnic cleansing, torture and has created a new class of diaspora left to flee the calamity as means of survival.

The lies that this war are built on have damned this country, its leaders, and its citizens to an endless feedback loop of suffering and human wreckage. The American attention span for the never ending and costly occupation of Iraq has continued to shrink. The lack of thirst for information or demand for the truth and accountability are acts of complicity in creating the lies that have sustained this war.

Now the next champion of this misadventure has grabbed the baton and kept marching forward with the same talking points and disrespect for the truth. John McCain is already finding convenient ways to falsely conflate Al Queda and Iran and then retracts the words as alleged gaffes. He is proudly proclaiming that we only have two options, continue on this reckless path or surrender to the forces of evil. Never mind the folly that led us to war in Iraq is the reason for the instability. There is no gray or in between even though the complexity of the mess we have created can't be mitigated with absolutes. Our right to the truth was stolen long ago. Until we get it back this trip through the hellish confines of this period our history will never end.

McCain Already Opting for Public Funds

John McCain hit the dusty ground of Iraq running by conducting a "fact finding" mission Sunday. This trip didn't appear to have the exorbitant security trappings of his last junket but had the regular hoopla. On the fact finding agenda were meetings with St. Petreaus and Iraqi leaders including his honor president Nouri al Maliki. Just to blur any line between fact finder and campaign stop McCain had Senate colleagues and stalwart Iraq enthusiasts Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham in tow.

The punditry has been keen to point out McCain's advantage over his rival Dem challengers. While Obama and Clinton continue to drag out the nomination process McCain can start assuming a presidential aura and visit important people and kiss important general asses. It's a really smart strategy I'll admit. I'm guessing a sliver of voters have assumed that a transition already took place and he's the new president.

I hope someone at the Federal Elections Commission is paying attention. This trip was clearly a campaign stop at the expense of taxpayers. If the Straight Talk Express is going to opt in for a public campaign funds that's great, he has been a champion of campaign reform right?

McCain just started running a tab barkeep, don't forget to settle before the General Election is over.

Cheney was also in Iraq today. He snarled something about last throes or phenomenal progress. I don't know does anyone even care?

Tom Ricks at CPL

Tom Ricks WaPo military affairs reporter and author of the book Fiasco will be giving a talk in Cleveland:

Cleveland Public Library Main Branch
Louis Stokes Wing
Sunday March 2nd at 2PM

See you there.

Turkey and Timetables

The current military invasion of that sovereign nation known as Iraq has taken a surreal turn. I'm of course talking about theTurkish invasion not the U.S. invasion. As Turkey has moved into Kurdistan to turn up the heat on P.K.K. guerrillas they have carefully employed the same rhetoric as the administration when it comes to getting out of Iraq.

In an implausible ironic twist Turkey is arguing with the U.S. about timetables on troop withdrawal from Iraq. Secretary Gates met with Turkish officials in Ankara today and the best he could get from the Turkish government was "A short time is a relative term.", and something like if you can say screw timetables so can we. Is it considered chutzpah when the U.S. President says "The Turks need to move, move quickly, achieve their objective and get out," about military involvement in Iraq?

The blowback from the Iraq invasion continues to take on new form every day and will only get worse if the situation in Kurdistan doesn't cool off. Do you think the Kurds are watching what is going on in Kosovo and wondering if the same gambit would pay off for them?