De som ser filmen «300» vil kanskje reagere på den overdrevne fremstillingen av kong Xerxes og perserne som orientalske despoter.

Men det vil neppe falle de samme menneskene inn at på dagens nihilistiske jihadister i Irak og Afghanistan passer bildet ganske bra: som så ekstreme at de unngår vår radar. Den er bare innstilt på det normale.

Man kan si mye negativt om Bush, men det at han klamrer seg fast til Irak-strategien skyldes ikke bare at han forsvarer sin arv: er det ikke også noe han har forstått, som demokratene nå gir blaffen i?

«It’s a tough war,» Bush said. «The American people are weary of this war. They’re wondering whether or not we can succeed. They’re horrified by the suicide bombing they see.»

Yet Bush used a horrific tale in Iraq — one in which terrorists put children in a car to get through a checkpoint, then exploded the vehicle — to describe why he won’t pull back.

«It makes me realize the nature of the enemy we face, which hardens my resolve to protect the American people,» Bush said. «People who do that are not — it’s not a civil war, it is pure evil. And I believe we have an obligation to protect ourselves from that evil.»

Demokratene vil ikke bare knytte tidsfrister for tilbaketrekning til krigskassen. De vil nå også bestemme hva slags operasjoner de militære kan få penger til.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) last week said he would propose legislation to cut off funds for combat operations, and provide money for only three missions: targeted counterterrorism operations, training and equipping the Iraqi security forces, and to provide security for U.S. personnel and infrastructure.

But Gates said that could pull troops from Baghdad neighborhoods, which have been the focus of the latest military buildup in Iraq.

«If we abandon some of these areas and withdraw into the countryside or whatever to do these targeted missions, that you could have a fairly significant ethnic cleansing inside Baghdad or in Iraq more broadly,» Gates said in a radio interview Wednesday with conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham.

Barack Obama tør å si det rett ut: Irak er ikke vårt ansvar. Det er irakernes ansvar. USA eier ikke Irak.

Det er rene ord for pengene. Men hvem vil få skylden når massakrene i Irak virkelig tar av, og/eller når borgerkrigen når et nivå hvor nabostatene griper inn? Det vil ikke bli demokratene. Da vil det også være politisk umulig å gå inn igjen.

Saudi-Arabias inntreden er et varsel om at de ikke tør ta sjansen på at USA kommer til å stå løpet ut.

Hva Norge tenker om dette er det ingen som vet, men Jonas Gahr Støres flirt med Den arabiske liga dreier seg om mer enn Israel/palestinerne. Norge involverer seg nå i det politiske spillet i Midtøsten, der innsatsen er meget høy.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) last week said he would propose legislation to cut off funds for combat operations, and provide money for only three missions: targeted counterterrorism operations, training and equipping the Iraqi security forces, and to provide security for U.S. personnel and infrastructure.

But Gates said that could pull troops from Baghdad neighborhoods, which have been the focus of the latest military buildup in Iraq.

«If we abandon some of these areas and withdraw into the countryside or whatever to do these targeted missions, that you could have a fairly significant ethnic cleansing inside Baghdad or in Iraq more broadly,» Gates said in a radio interview Wednesday with conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham.
..
Today, Iran is successfully entrenching its influence across the region. It is slowly encircling the kingdom, filling the vacuum created by American missteps. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine, Iran’s influence grows ever larger with each passing day. In Palestine, U.S. and European cessation of aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas joined the government gave Iran the freedom to step in and offer its own aid package, one that quickly attracted Hamas’s attention. This is why Abdullah brokered the Mecca Accord between Hamas and Fatah. It was done to dangle before the parties an aid package far in excess of what Iran could offer.

The Saudis are even more panicked by what may happen in Iraq. Foreign Minister Faisal succinctly summarized his country’s concerns before an American audience in September 2005. He warned that, if Iraqi Sunnis and Shia devolve into civil war, «it will cause so many conflicts in the region that it will bring the whole region into a turmoil that will be hard to resolve. The Iranians would enter the conflict because of the south, the Turks because of the Kurds, and the Arabs–because both these countries are going to enter–will be definitely dragged into the conflict. … [The United States and Saudi Arabia] fought a war together to keep Iran from occupying Iraq. … Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason.» In a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, Saudi analyst Nawaf Obaid warned that, if the United States withdrew troops, Iraq’s bloodshed would worsen at the expense of the Sunnis, which «would undermine Saudi Arabia’s credibility in the Sunni world and would be a capitulation to Iran’s militarist actions in the region.»

What Saudi Arabia wants.
Good Neighbors
by Rachel Bronson
Only at TNR Online | Post date 04.03.07