Is the Embassy Proof of Duplicity?

Iraq's interim government transferred the land to U.S. ownership in October 2004, under an agreement whose terms were not disclosed.

The designs aren't publicly available, but the Senate report makes clear it will be a self-sufficient and "hardened" domain, to function in the midst of Baghdad power outages, water shortages and continuing turmoil.

It will have its own water wells, electricity plant and wastewater-treatment facility, "systems to allow 100 percent independence from city utilities," says the report, the most authoritative open source on the embassy plans.

Is there some point you're trying to make by posting a picture of an embassy in SE Asia?

Do you still refuse to visit the web site of The Project for a New American Century, Brandon? Even if you do, others can go there and see that this administration, which employs a great many of the founding members of the PNAC has planned this all along, before they even had an excuse to frighten the American people into accepting the invasion of Iraq.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.

Setanta wrote:

Do you still refuse to visit the web site of The Project for a New American Century, Brandon? Even if you do, others can go there and see that this administration, which employs a great many of the founding members of the PNAC has planned this all along, before they even had an excuse to frighten the American people into accepting the invasion of Iraq.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

I was ardently hoping for an invasion of Iraq years before it happened, simply because I was afraid that Saddam Hussein was secretly continuing development of WMD, and that if he did attain them, something terrible might happen. How is that immoral?

One of the most under-discussed facts with regard to Iraq is that the very people who conceived of the invasion and who are the architects of our current military strategy have always believed, and still believe, that we must go to war with Iran. Our current strategy in Iraq was designed and, to a large degree, implemented with that goal in mind.

Writing in The Weekly Standard this weekend, "Surge architect" Fred Kagan and chief Iraq war propagandist Bill Kristol made that as clear as can be, in an article entitled "Congress Gives in on War Funding -- Now Can We Fight the Enemy?" (and by "Enemy," they do not mean "Iraqi insurgents," at least not solely):

This means that our victory there will be an important victory in the larger struggle against terrorism--and our defeat there would embolden and empower our enemies. And the reality is that Iran and Syria are enemies. Most foreign fighters join al Qaeda in Iraq via Syria. And Iran has been sending advanced weapons and advisers into Iraq. These weapons and insurgents supported by Iran are killing our soldiers on a daily basis. There should be no doubt about the hostile role Iran and Syria are playing in Iraq today.

Kristol, of course, previously has expressly called for a U.S. war against Iran, and he even urged the White House to seek a Resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iran prior to the 2006 election. And Fred Kagan himself has acknowledged that he believes U.S. military strategy in Iraq -- including the "surge" which he personally designed -- must be developed "with the possibility of conflict with Iran ever on the horizon."

All of the super-serious and responsible pundits may be drowning in angst over the fact that we cannot leave Iraq because it is so very vital that, before we leave, we stabilize that country and turn it into a beacon of democracy, or at least avert even worse violence. But however laudable that goal might be, that is not the goal of the people controlling our actual strategy in Iraq. Stabilizing Iraq in order to leave is not what they are interested in.

What they seek -- by their own acknowledgment -- is a conflict with Iran and Syria, and they want to stay in Iraq because that is how that goal can be achieved. Joe Lieberman published an Op-Ed at the end of last year declaring that America's real enemy in this "war" is Iran. Charles Krauthammer and John Podhoretz last year both proclaimed -- excitedly -- that U.S. war with Iran was inevitable, and that (according to Krauthammer) it would be less than a year away.

On their Fox television show this weekend, Wall St. Journal pundits Paul Gigot and Bret Stephens warned of the grave threat posed by Iran (which, needless to say, was compared to Nazi Germany), and the even greater danger of the "U.N. path," which is too "slow and toothless."

And Fred Hiatt's Washington Post Editorial this morning said this: "Military action against Iran would be a desperate and probably ineffective measure. Barring an emergency, the Bush administration should not undertake it." With U.S. forces extremely active in two of Iran's neighboring countries, and the belligerent rhetoric and provocative actions escalating on both sides, nothing is easier than imagining an "emergency" which would "justify" the "military action against Iran" to which Hiatt is plainly receptive.

These are not fringe figures, even if they ought to be. These are the people who have driven the Bush administration's foreign policy since its inception. Their advocacy, in almost every case, foreshadows what the Bush administration does. And they are, with increasing explicitness, pining for war with Iran, and our occupation of Iraq -- militarily, strategically, and politically -- is what enables that conflict.