From Robert Scheer at Alternet:
We don’t respect or understand any religious or nationalist fervor other than our own. That myopic distortion has been a persistent historical failure of U.S. foreign policy, but it has reached the point of total blindness in the Bush administration.
The latest exhibition of this approach was President Bush’s thinly veiled threat this weekend to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities or even invade the country as a last resort, sparked by Tehran’s troubled negotiations with the West over its nuclear program.
It is telling that Bush made the comments on Israeli television, which makes them exponentially more provocative. Israel is, of course, not only Iran’s archenemy but is also believed to be the sole possessor of nuclear weapons in the immediate region.
It is as if Bush is not content to rattle his saber at Tehran’s hard-liners; he also wants to ensure that he infuriates and publicly embarrasses even moderate Iranians. …
And this editorial from Pakistan’s The Frontier Post:
Having blundered into the present morass, the Bush Administration had pinned its hopes on a weakened insurgency and new constitution to extricate itself. Wrong again. Not only can’t Washington get out, now the Shiites want to have an autonomous south while firmly in Tehran’s embrace. …
Lastly, from Salon‘s War Room:
Things just seem to keep getting better for Iran. The Shiite majority in Iraq is philosophically aligned with the Iranian government, and a new report in the Wall Street Journal indicates just how much rising oil prices have increased Tehran’s leverage in negotiations with the West to drop its nuclear energy ambitions. …