Bizarre reading of the Vienna agreement about Iran’s atomic program in the Washington Post this morning. In a news analysis Glenn Kessler writes: For years, the Bush administration has warned of the Iranian threat, but its concerns were belittled or ignored as yet another example of American hyperbole.
For many months, at least since President George W. Bush announced that we would “stand down” in Iraq as quickly as the Iraqis “stand up”, it has been a puzzle as to why we were building permanent military bases in Iraq if “standing down” meant, as most Americans assumed, getting out–withdrawing our troops.
By now, I should know what I’m getting into when I agree to help Steve out with the blog — just like last year, he’s managed to assemble an impressive array of guest posters. No doubt we can expect some sparks again, as events seem to flare up as soon as Steve leaves for vacation….
So, here’s my just-in-time submission that will pick up on a couple themes from recent posts. It was an honor to be asked to contribute to TWN in Steve’s absence. I’ve never blogged before, so I await the potentially well deserved keyboard lashings in response to this rant.
Two separate, unrelated items — both concerning issues that I know Steve will continue to cover upon his return to active blogging… The first concerns Iran.
The PR contortions over shifting the slogan of the anti-terrorist war from GWOT, to GWOE, to GSAVE, to ‘what-the-hell-ever’ has backfired so badly that it is only reinforcing the perception of administration failure to craft an effective communications campaign to exist side-by-side with its military campaigns.
OK, I’ve been sitting on the sidelines watching the fur fly. A new article in the New York Review of Books prompts me to post. Tony Judt takes a very dim view of where things are headed, even to the point of likening, at least implicitly, the U.S.
Before he left for his “undisclosed location,” Steve had alerted TWN readers about the launch of a new bipartisan initiative, the Partnership for A Secure America. This group had its debut this week (see Jonathan Kaplan’s report in The Hill, at ), and Scot Lehigh’s op-ed in today’s Boston Globe.
The inaugural issue of the Yale Journal of International Affairs contains an interview with David Brooks.
Steve should be returning to these here parts sometime soon. I thank him for letting me say a few things around here. It’s certainly been an interesting group sitting in — including Bolton-agnostic conservatives such as yours truly and Bolton-supporting war-skeptical conservatives such as the illustrious and always provocative Doug Bandow.