Middle East Debacle

Les AuCoin sent me a link to a post on Truth Out by Timothy Garton Ash in the Guardian

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/121406C.shtml

and this got me to thinking. Back in 2000-01 Bush was rather roundly criticized for "ignoring" the Middle East. ( Apparently in error since he had his eye squarely on Iraq ) Since 9/11 he's been paying attention. If somebody will point out to me just exactly what is going well in the Middle East, I'd be gratified, because I seem to have missed it. I'm sure this could be dismissed as partisan sniping, if anything, in fact, were going well. Afghanistan started off with promise, without large loss of life or widespread additional destruction the Taliban was deposed. Soooo... Lebanon pushed Syria out without loss of life and destruction. Soooo... Both are now on the verge of falling apart. Saudi Arabia and Egypt both sit by the powder keg of Iraq, their populations being further radicalized and anti-Americanized by that debacle. Iran's public government (not to be confused with the actual government) is even less sane than previously. Syria is scared enough of the US to ally itself with its ordinary foe Iran and toe their line, becoming more dangerous than pre-Axis of Evil tripe.

Les advocated holding Congress' feet to the fire over this nonsense, and I agree. In fact I so sincerely agree that I posted Dennis Kucinich's site previous to this post. One thing that you can be sure of with Dennis and with Russ Feingold is that they won't keep their traps shut. This is not the time to be "nice" to the BushCo or to muddle along with them. Whether Dennis Kucinich can win the Primary or beat a Republican is a very open question, but he sure is not a Hillary or Joe Lieberman and that is hugely in his favor as far as getting progressive support at this point. The media will ignore him if he doesn't get money and Blog space. I'm trying to help that out.