War Drums Along the Potomac

US DOD Secretary Gates is pounding on the drums war about Iran. He is thumping out the messages to Arab states in the Middle East that Teheran is a danger. Well, has Gates been reading the newspapers of late? Has he no knowledge of nor feeling for recent history in that region in the world? Why does the Islamic Republic of Iran loom large on Bush's hysteria scale?
If Iran has assumed a larger than life presence in the Middle East, Bush has but himself to blame by initiating a war in Iraq. Out went Saddam Hussein who kept Teheran in check, thereby creating a vacuum for Iran to rush in. But had mini-mouse Bush learnt anything from his pappy's war against Saddam, the elder Bush kept the hanged Iraqi dictator in place in order that Iraq would not fracture into 3 warring factions--which the son Bush has managed to do, and so lead to destabilising the balance of power in that part of western Asia. Not only that, Bush & co. kicked the Sunni military elite out with a swift kick of his pro-counsul's Bremer's boot, and reaped a whirlwind of guerrilla and sectarian warfare. More, the incompetent Rumsfeld and the corrupt, naif Wolfowitz warmed up to the Shi'a forces which have close, cosy, and very chummy ties with Iran.
Teheran, on the other hand, has made overtures to the council of Arab states, notably Bush's pals in Saudi Arabia, to mend fences and allay fears of a non-Arab, Shia-dominated Iraq and a trouble sport for the Shi'a minority in the Arabian peninsula and the Gulf states.
18 Brumaire can go on with this 'cahier de doleances', but suffice it be to say, that the trouble in Iraq and the instability in the region bears the scarlet letter of culpability which is on Bush & co. military fatiques.
So Gates if Iran is mocking the small minds in Washington, it is simply tying the shoelaces of a bully so that he can trip on his war which he lied his was into, and the lack of any foresight in planning what would be the consequences of a post-Saddam Iraq. And t'wasn't songs and dances and let's go down to the beach and live happily everafter; it was one blunder after the other which has weakened the US at home and abroad, and set the region's teeth on edge that a tsunami of regime change will come for Washington's allies and that the dust won't settle for years to come.