Bush-flavored Kool-Aid no longer selling

While the administration tries to lay the groundwork for some sort military strike against Iran, this piece points out that no one's drinking Bush's Kool-Aid on the issue. Their credibility gap is coming back to haunt them. A recent report by the Pentagon's inspector-general watchdog detailed how the former number three at the department, Douglas Feith, took "inappropriate" actions in pushing al-Qaeda/Saddam links that weren't backed up by intelligence agencies.

Feith defended his actions in presenting the administration with the intelligence it wanted in order to substantiate an unjustified aggression against Iraq as "good government."

Not surprisingly, the self-delusions of the Pentagon's top civilian leadership filtered down to the military commanders. The war's military planners originally envisaged that only 5000 American troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006. There are now 132,000 US GI's in Iraq with another 20,000 on the way.

"Completely unrealistic assumptions about a post-Saddam Iraq permeate these war plans," NSA executive director Thomas Blanton said in a statement posted on the organisation's website.

It's such that even in the unlikely event that Iran does pose some sort of security risk to the United States, no one would believe the warnings coming out of administration officials. Many Americans feel suckered after having believed Bush's fantastical warnings about the non-existent menace posed by Saddam (not just that he allegedly had WMDs but that he'd use them against America). Bush and his cabal have no credibility anymore.

Given how amateurish the pre-war planning and self-delusional the whole premise of the war, it's no surprise this that the main unintended consequence of the Aggression is to massively strengthen Iran's influence in the region. Which is why the administration is laying the foundation for some sort of military action. Almost certainly not a full-scale invasion, but with a completely out of control administration, air strikes or some small land incursions are hardly out of the question.

(Take a look at what Iran looks like now before Bush militarism destroys at least some part of it.)

But given how badly the administration deceived us on Iraq, with the nightmare that is that country and with the bodybags flowing home despite the horrifically worsening situation for Iraqis themselves, surely Americans aren't ready to be fooled again.