Blogging will be light this week...

I'm working a lot and Blogger isn't working well at all. Best I can tell their 'retooling' won't be completed until next week. Hopefully I'm wrong as it's frustrating to try and post and impossible to add links/make changes to the template. The page itself looks terrible and I'm sorry I can't acknowledge the very nice people who've linked to me lately with a reciprocal one, but thanks.

Even more frustrating is the news. Insert Iran for Iraq and you know the drill. Rumsfeld in his presentation to the CFR stated this;

Rumsfeld said that reformist Iranians might someday be able to topple the ruling Islamic leadership in that country. He answered a question on Iran by outlining a policy of avoiding "a close, intimate relationship" with the rulers of Iran for fear that this would discourage what he described as a latent popular opposition.

"Look at that country and see that there are things happening, that the women and the young people are churning in that country and putting pressure on the handful of clerics that dominate and control that regime," Rumsfeld said.

However that isn't the whole story. According to this article the Bush administration played very nice with the conversatives in Iran in exchange for their quiet support of the Iraq attack. It appears now that the objective has been untidily met the U.S. is falling behind Sharon's call for regime change in Iran as well.

According to Simin Royanian, an economist and co-founder of Women for Peace and Justice in Iran: "Iran recently arrested alleged Al-Qaeda members. One might have thought that this would be greeted positively by the administration, but instead it cut off dialogue with Iran. It's claiming that Iran is backing Al-Qaeda and developing nuclear weapons -- without citing any evidence for either charge. In fact, it's the Iranian government which has noted that the U.S. is now cooperating with Mujahedeen Khalq, a group that had worked with Saddam Hussein against the Iranian government. Mujahedeen Khalq is actually on the State Department terrorist list. The charges of nuclear possession stem largely from Israel, which wants to make sure no state in the region besides itself may have any possibility of ever developing nuclear weapons. According to the U.N., Iran is a member of, and in good standing with, the U.N. nuclear agency's regulations. The U.S. Congress is moving to fund exiles, and operations have reportedly been staged in Iran. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) announced on May 19 that they are introducing a bill in Congress to fund Iranian exile groups. The administration might be moving toward destabilizing the regime in Iran for the third anniversary of the Iranian student uprising on July 9."

The 'roadmap' is history now that revisions have been presented but anyone keeping track of its progress knows it was insincere from the start. I wonder how many connect Sharon's recent promoting of it despite months of ridiculing it to his hiring of PR people from the U.S.?

A Very Mixed Marriage indeed;

Diplomatically, the move made sense. Politically, it was no accident. Indeed, NEWSWEEK has learned, political adviser Karl Rove was involved in reviewing drafts of both of Bush’s major addresses on the Middle East. Senior administration officials say Rove merely “noodled” the “phrasing” of the speeches.

But in the Middle East, every noodle is important. A former senior Bush administration official says that proposed language favorable to the Palestinian cause was “walked back” after the speeches were reviewed by Vice President Dick Cheney, national-security adviser Condi Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Rove. According to the former official, Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, defended the edits. In one conversation, Hadley said that the speeches needed, among other things, to be politically viable. (Through a spokeswoman, Hadley strongly denied that politics was involved.)

******snip******

Mere politics is involved, too. Conservative Christians want to shed their image of intolerance. “They’re tired of being branded anti-Semites,” says Grover Norquist, a conservative activist. GOP leaders bless the marriage, and hope to get it into a Big Tent strategy for 2004. There is evidence that a number of major Jewish donors—longtime Democrats—are covering their bets if not switching sides, especially in New York, where the shock of 9-11 adds urgency to the war on terror and to Bush’s popularity among Jews.

After private assurances from Bush, Sharon late last week made a show of accepting the Roadmap in concept, if not in its particulars. But the new Zionists are taking no chances. Three weeks ago Bauer was warned by allies in Israel’s government—one of them was Tourism Minister Benny Elon, a source told NEWSWEEK—that Bush was about to pressure Sharon. Bauer and others swung into action. At a conference in Washington, speaker after speaker denounced the document as a “Roadmap to hell.” Bauer organized a letter to Bush from two dozen evangelical leaders, warning that any attempt to be “evenhanded” between Israel and the Palestinians would be “morally reprehensible.” “If they do anything other than make Jerusalem the capital of Israel, they would be messing with the word and the power of God,” Robertson told NEWSWEEK. DeLay pitched in, too. Speaking to Jewish political activists in Washington last week, he said, “Israel is not the problem in the Middle East. Israel is the solution.” He spoke no Hebrew this time, but it still sounded like a prayer.

Is Iran the next target?

The policy debate in Washington has rarely been sharper. Following the swift military victory in Iraq, the neocons imagined they had gained in influence and routed their critics. Now, however, with Iraq in chaos, terrorism rampant, Sharon unrestrained, and the dollar and the American economy heading lower, the tide is turning once again. The strategic wisdom of the neocons is being questioned.

The sensible opinion would seem to be that America will need to show some success in rebuilding Iraq and resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict before it turns its attention to the mullahs in Tehran.

Insert 'find Osama/al-Qaeda' and 'securing Afghanistan' for 'rebuilding Iraq' and 'securing peace in Israel' and I think I've read this story before as well.