Nothing new here...

With Iran looking — in some American neocon pundit's and policymakers' eyes — like the next Iraq, how does it play out in British politics.

Military action against Iran is not being discussed, but there is 'increasing alarm' about that state's actions among the international community, Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

'Nobody is talking about military intervention in respect of Iran,' Blair told MPs on a key parliamentary committee today.

However, he warned that 'you can't take any option off the table'.

I guess it is hard to take an option off the table when everyone around you is screaming for you to take it off the table, isn't it? Politicians both in the United States and the UK are being pressured and pressuring their peers to not even think about a preemptive attack on Iran. (However, how can Blair be talking about military intervention in Iran if 'nobody is talking about' it?)

Nothing too new here either.
American troops could start leaving Iraq by the end of this year if the plan to suppress sectarian violence with reinforcements in Baghdad is successful, Robert Gates, the secretary of defense, said today.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Mr. Gates came under intense questioning by Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia.

“How much longer do you think we are going to be in Iraq before we start to bring our people home?” Senator Byrd asked over and over again.

Mr. Gates was reluctant at first to make a prediction, but under pressure said that if the Baghdad operation is successful and the Iraqis “establish leadership” the United States could “begin to draw down troops later this year.”

However, even if the bulk of American forces begin to head home, Mr. Gates said the United States would have to maintain a military presence in Iraq “for years.” He declined to specify how large a force would be required, but said it would be “a fraction of what we have there now.”
The 'we will stand down when the Iraqis stand up' is old rhetoric, but this latest testimony is a more promising spin on that existing policy.

technorati tags: iran, iraq, tony+blair, robert+gates, united+states, news, politics, byrd

A 'new direction' or a new disaster?

Read more HERE and HERE.

President Bush: situation in Iraq is 'unacceptable'. "Unacceptable” is definitely a vague understatement, and I would not be surprised if the president turned around soon and said Iraq is going peachy [again]. Either he thinks we are idiots, he is the idiot himself, or both. “Unacceptable” is what you say when you get burnt toast at a diner or your kid gets a D on their math test, not what you say about a civil war that you effectively created with pour policies, being closed-minded, and invading that nation in the first place!

Especially in the way President Bush seemed to yet again imply the non-existent connection between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Iraq. There are even suggestions many of his references were targeted at Iran.

I have made a bet with some of my friends that President Bush will soon turn around and tell the nation Iraq is going peachy — again. This ‘Iraq is unacceptable’ rhetoric will not last. Bush is just trying, and failing miserably, to convince various groups of people that he is doing the right thing in Iraq. By admitting his role in the disastrous situation, he also gets the media and some critics off his back, they can no longer say he has been incompetent and not admitting of his poor judgment.

Already there are troubles with Bush's new plan. BBC News:

The US defence secretary has said there is no timetable for Iraq to prove it has fulfilled commitments required by the US in President Bush's new plan.

But Robert Gates said the US would have a "good idea" of the Iraqi government's success before many new troops went in.

The plan, by which more than 20,000 more troops will be sent to Iraq, may begin in earnest around the first week in February, he told a Senate hearing.

Both Democrats and some Republicans have criticised the plan.

Mr Bush plans to send at least 20,000 more troops, saying it will help bring security to Baghdad's streets.

And Congress — as well as the public — is against (WP) the plans too (see top of this post for further links).

President Bush's proposal to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq encountered strong bipartisan opposition on Capitol Hill yesterday, and his top national security advisers, dispatched to defend the strategy, were greeted with a skepticism not seen from Congress over the past six years.

Lawmakers said they have little confidence that the Iraqi government has the capacity to deliver on promises to take the lead in cracking down on violent militias and providing security in Baghdad, as the president's plan contemplates. Democrats and Republicans alike said they are concerned that Bush's plan, announced Wednesday night in a nationally televised prime-time address, is too little and too late and does not appear very different from previous efforts to secure the capital.

Here's a good editorial from The New York Times criticizing Bush more for what he did not say than what he did say. Who knows if the podium and audience will be as large next time he makes a speech, maybe he lost his chance to help his legacy at least a bit...

President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush’s war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it.

Americans needed to hear a clear plan to extricate United States troops from the disaster that Mr. Bush created. What they got was more gauzy talk of victory in the war on terrorism and of creating a “young democracy” in Iraq. In other words, a way for this president to run out the clock and leave his mess for the next one.

Mr. Bush did acknowledge that some of his previous tactics had failed. But even then, the president sounded as if he were an accidental tourist in Iraq. He described the failure of last year’s effort to pacify Baghdad as if the White House and the Pentagon bore no responsibility.

In any case, Mr. Bush’s excuses were tragically inadequate. The nation needs an eyes-wide-open recognition that the only goal left is to get the U.S. military out of this civil war in a way that could minimize the slaughter of Iraqis and reduce the chances that the chaos Mr. Bush unleashed will engulf Iraq’s neighbors.

What it certainly did not need were more of Mr. Bush’s open-ended threats to Iran and Syria.

Lastly, The New York Times has a great interactive version of Bush speech with analysis (here).

PRESIDENT BUSH has presented a new strategy for the war in Iraq that he feels can reverse the country’s drift toward large-scale civil war. The new plan focuses on stabilizing Baghdad by adding thousands of American troops with newly expanded powers to take on Shiite as well as Sunni rebels. It also includes a limited increase in United States forces in Anbar Province, and calls for Iraqi forces to take formal control of the security mission in November. The president was refreshingly candid, saying that “where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me.”

But taken as a whole, the speech raised more questions than it answered.

This post will be updated with more commentary over the weekend!

technorati tags: bush, iraq, politics, congress, robert+gates, baghdad, news, bush+speech, iraq+speech, iraq+plan, troop+elevation, surge

Bolton leaves as UN ambassador; Gates to come as secretary of defense

Departure
Thank goodness now-former United States ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, resigned from his position. His track record [as a diplomat only by title] at the UN fares no better than his work before the highest position in American diplomatic service. He was never even confirmed by Congress — as is the requirement — but President Bush put Bolton up to the post anyway.


Arrival
Robert Gates, favored as the next US secretary of defense, responded, when asked whether he thought the American war in Iraq was going well, “No, sir”.

BBC News:

US Defence Secretary nominee Robert Gates has told a Senate committee that the US is not winning the war in Iraq.

Maybe this man, who worked with the more realistic and down-to-earth (but still not great), George H.W. Bush (41st president), will knock some sense into this administration’s thinking on defense and foreign policy. Wishful thinking considering almost anyone with common sense in this White House has been shut out. This hits on the central question featured on the cover of Newsweek this week: "Will he [Bush] listen?". (Although that article relates to the Iraq Study Group, whose full report is set to come out tomorrow, the question stands.) Gates will probably replace Donald Rumsfeld, whom I can safely say I don’t admire. Just as a final note, Gates was voted for 24 to null in a Senate Armed Services Committee vote earlier today.

On the bright side for those in the West Wing, at least one out of two of the recent nominations (Bolton's was stalled) looks like it's going to be a green light.

technorati tags: rumsfeld, gates, robert+gates, donald+rumsfeld, secretary+of+defense, bush, george+bush, Iraq, news, politics, united+states, usa, bolton, john+bolton, ambassador, un, united+nations, clearthought, in+perspective