Urban legends and incalculable stakes

Tony Snow calls the notion of Bush's speech being a precursor to a strike on Iran an urban legend. Fine, maybe bloggers are blowing things out of proportion a little bit, but only because the evidence seems to say otherwise when taken with a helping of Bush's speech.

Secretary of Defense Gates, testifying in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee recently, also dropped a few hints:

Mr. Gates said further setbacks in Iraq would further embolden Iran and Syria to take advantage of the United States’ weakened position in the region.

Only a short while ago this career spook and recent university executive was part of the Iraq Study Group, whose final recommendation called for dialogue. For some reason Churchill's famous quote keeps coming to mind, "in wartime the truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies".

News Sunday suggests the Iranians captured in Irbil were also a part of the al-Qods forces, just like the group detained in Baghdad before Christmas. If bad deeds are to mean anything then Iran deserves to have its butt kicked all over the map. We've been putting up with proxy attacks for years, mainly because the attacks were never to the point of warranting a risky response capable of inflaming a regional war or retaliatory terrorist attacks, or yes, disruption of oil flow. Besides, America doesn't like war, not even Bush.

But America doesn't like getting slapped around by punks, either. The Iraq situation has eroded our ability to turn a blind eye towards Tehran anymore. Blame Bush if you like, but he wasn't in office when the first of many Iranian-backed attacks killed innocent Americans.

Everyone would like to see a peaceful resolution to the situation in the Middle East. Everyone. However, if that means a return to an ostrich policy to the benefit of Iranian-backed terrorists, then it just kicks the problem down the line. Bush has shown he is not one to employ such strategies in a post 9/11 world.

The Democrats, poised to take the White House in 2008 if they behave themselves and the Iraq troubles continue, will not answer the question of how a troop redeployment might affect conditions over there. Mr. Gates will. He described the stakes as "incalculable" in his testimony. The man is dripping with something the left loves--gravitas--and so far he's been rather forthright under Congressional examination. Is there any reason we shouldn't believe him?

MORE 1/15/07

This Iran issue seems to be the topic of the day. While grilling Condi Rice in the Senate Chuck Hagel recently made the Vietnam-Cambodia analogy regards cross-border forays into Syria and Iran:

"When our government lied to the American people and said, 'We didn't cross the border going into Cambodia,' in fact, we did," Hagel said, referring to the Vietnam war. "So, Madam Secretary, when you set in motion the kind of policy that the president is talking about here, it's very, very dangerous."

Two points. Although the parallels are rather striking the big difference is that Iran has attacked us several times before 9/11 while Cambodia had no similar intentions. Also, wonder how these same people feel about cross-border raids into eastern Iran or Pakistan in chasing bin Laden or Zawahiri?