The spectacle of antiwar activist Cindy Sheehan being forced to leave the House chamber in advance of President Bush’s speech last night is sad. But far sadder is the stubborn unwillingness of the Democrats to confront Bush’s illegal, immoral, and failing war in Iraq.

A one-sentence quote from today’s New York Times says it all. Referring to Senator Harry Reid of Nevada and Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who spoke in advance of Bush’s speech, the Times noted: "The Congressional leaders steered clear of the Iraq war in their remarks before the speech."

That is, they "steered clear" of the central focus on the Bush administration’s tenure and the heart of Bush’s speech last night.

Meanwhile Tim Kaine, mindlessly repeating the party’s “there is a better way” slogan, managed to avoid Iraq, too, noting only in passing that Bush’s pre-war intelligence was bad and that the Pentagon had failed to provide enough body armor for the troops. So I guess it would be okay to fight an illegal war of aggression against an oil-rich state, as long as we provide the troops with body armor.

None of the Dems bothered to suggest any solution for Iraq. I take that as a sign that the Dems intend to fight the battle of 2006 without taking on Iraq.

Too many observers are adopting a relaxed attitude about the likelihood of a U.S. attack on Iran. Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal told us all to let our guard down, that the influence of the neoconservatives on U.S. foreign policy has evaporated: “As ‘Neocons’ Leave, Bush Foreign Policy Takes a Softer Line,” said the soothing page one story.

An attack on Iran might seem foolish by standards that reasonable people use—but so was the invasion of Iraq. Seen on its own terms, an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities seems stupid, since although it might hamper Iran’s nuclear industry it would strengthen Iran’s hard-liners, trigger an Iranian-led offensive against Israel and the United States, lead Iran to inflame its allies in Iraq against the United States, and send oilprices up sharply.

But the neocons see an attack on Iran as the next step in what Michael Ledeen calls the “war to remake the world.”

Here’s a piece from the London Times that explains the unfolding scenario:

Lieutenant-Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former US Air Force officer, predicted that knocking out nuclear sites could be over in less than a week. But he gave warning that would only be the beginning.

Iran has threatened to defend itself if attacked. It could use medium-range missiles to hit Israel or US military targets in Iraq and the region. It could also use its missiles and submarines to attack shipping in the Gulf, the main export route for much of the world’s energy needs. “Once you have dealt with the nuclear sites you would have to expand the targets,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Gardiner. “There are another 125 to deal with including chemical plants, missile launchers, airfields and submarines.”

That leads to a much wider war, in which the neocons would not only go for regime change in Iran but escalate to finish the bungled job in Iraq, too. And maybe take on Syria.

Scott Ritter issued another warning that Iran is next, adding that he'd talked to the speechwriter for John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, who said Bolton's speech about attacking Iran is already written.

Robert Joseph and Richard Perle weighed in this week on the idea of attacking Iran. While many other neocon and right-wing commentators have done the same, Joseph and Perle are important because the former is a senior U.S. government official and the latter is considered the chief spokesman for the neoconservative faction outside the government.

Joesph, the undersecretary of state for arms control (the post previously held by John Bolton), spoke this week at the Foreign Press Center in Washington. In his remarks, he contradicted many others who say that Iran is far from the ability to develop nuclear weapons:

"I would say that Iran does have the capability to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them," he said in a response to a question.

With the Europeans having declared two years of negotiations with Iran at a dead-end, Joseph said "there is no end of diplomacy" and that taking Iran to the Security Council was "moving diplomacy to the next level."
"We are giving every chance to diplomacy to work," Joseph said.

At the same time, the official said, "No options are off the table. We cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran."

Perle, meanwhile, said that the fact that the Bush administration was wrong about WMD in Iraq doesn't mean that the United States ought to hesitate before accusing Iran of building a bomb. In fact, he said, turning logic on its head and giving it a spin, the very uncertainty means that the United States ought to be even more interested in attacking Iran. The less we know about whether Iran is building a bomb, the more eager we ought to be to bomb them:

"If you want to try to wait until the very last minute, you'd better be very confident of your intelligence because if you're not, you won't know when the last minute is," Perle told Reuters on the sidelines of an annual security conference in Munich.

"And so, ironically, one of the lessons of the inadequate intelligence of Iraq is you'd better be careful how long you choose to wait."

By now it’s not surprising when the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page utterly contradicts news accounts in its own pages, but this week the Journal did it in spades. And it goes to the heart of the crisis in Iraq, where the Bush administration has just about handed Iraq to Iran on a silver platter.

First, on Tuesday, the Journal reported, in a page one lead story by Jay Solomon and others, that Iran is winning the game in Iraq. The article was headlined: “Iran Plays Growing Role in Iraq, Complicating Bush’s Strategy.” It catalogued a long list of Iranian power plays in Iraq, including media influence, private investment, arms smuggling, and more. It noted that posters of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran adorn walls all over Iraq. It described the “growing convergence of Iran’s and Iraq’s religious elite,” and it reported that Prime Minister Jaafari, who leads the former terrorist underground party of Shiite religious radicals and who was just re-designated by the ruling Shiite alliance to have that job once again in the so-called “permanent” government, lived in exile in Teheran.

Then today, in a rosy-scenario editorial called “The Shiite Choice,” the Journal’s editors delivered an extended tribute to Jaafari, saying that he has “an untainted record of courageous opposition to Saddam Hussein’s regime.” And it added: “Of all the Shiite alliance’s conceivable choices for the post [of prime minister], Mr. Jaafari is also the least beholden to Iran. … Mr. Jaafari and his Dawa Party don’t seem dependent on Teheran and are unquestionably indigenous Iraqi patriots.” It was, of course, the Dawa that was supported by Iran, first by the Shah of Iran’s SAVAK intelligence service in the 1970s and then by Khomeini’s intelligence service in the 1980s, and whose “opposition” to Saddam included unbridled terrorism. “Mr. Jaafari,” says the Journal’s editorial, “will allay Western fears of Iraq’s domination by a monolithic, Iranian-linked Shiite bloc.”

Well, it’s true that the Shiite bloc isn’t monolithic. But all of its components have ties to, and are heavily influenced by, Iran. Perhaps the Sunni bloc in Iraq and the Kurds can ameliorate the growing Iran-Iraq alliance, but I wouldn’t count on it.

The latest (official) incarnation of the Evil Caliphate is contained in a Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing, which posits that the U.S. enemy in the Long War is made up of at least 12 million Muslims who want to establish an empire to battle the United States. The briefing was reported by the Washington Times. An excerpt:

The briefing was prepared for Rear Adm. William D. Sullivan, vice director for strategic plans and policy within the Joint Staff, which is under Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. Adm. Sullivan used it to deliver a lecture in January to a national security study group at Mississippi State University.

Bin Laden, the Joint Staff paper says, wants to "expand the Muslim empire to historical significance." And Iraq "has become the focus of the enemy's effort. If they win in Iraq, they have a base from which to expand their terror. ... Extremists now have an Emirate in Iraq that serves as a base of operations from which they can revive the Caliphate [Islamic rule]. ... Baghdad becomes the capital of the Caliphate. The revived Caliphate now turns its attention to the destruction of Israel."

Adm. Sullivan's briefing contains a map that shows the bin Laden-style caliphate conquering North and East Africa, the entire Middle East and Central and South Asia.

To me it sounds like the Protocols of the Elders of Islam. It’s nonsense, of course. As I’ve been writing for years now, the people we are fighting in Iraq are Baathists and former military officials and Sunni tribal and clan leaders, not Caliphate-mongers and bin Laden’s cronies. Is Adm. Sullivan’s intelligence that bad?

Death in Iraq is automated now. Buried in a Washington Post story on the post-Golden Dome carnage – which, the Post reported, left 1,300 dead in four days – is this little vignette:

Claiming the dead has become automated. Morgue workers directed families to a barred window in the narrow courtyard outside the main entrance. A computer screen angled to face the window flashed the contorted, staring faces of the dead: men shot in the mouth, men shot in the head, men covered with blood, men with bindings twisted around their necks.

Men and a few women in black abayas pressed up to the window's black bars as the reek of the bodies inside spilled out.

"What neighborhood?'' a morgue worker asked one waiting man.

"Adhamiyah,'' the man said, naming a predominantly Sunni neighborhood.

Tapping at the keyboard, the morgue worker fast-forwarded through the scores of tortured faces.

"Criminals. How can you kill another human for nothing?" someone clutching the bars asked.

"Good news, we found the body," another man called out. "We found him."

In case you were wondering how the U.S. military brainwashes its soldiers, here’s a highlight from the new Zogby poll of U.S. troops in Iraq:

While 85% said the U.S. mission is mainly "to retaliate for Saddam's role in the 9-11 attacks," 77% said they also believe the main or a major reason for the war was "to stop Saddam from protecting al Qaeda in Iraq."

Now many American civilians used to think that Saddam was behind 9/11, too. Some still do. But the Bush brainwashing of Americans is starting to fade as reality sinks in. Not so with the troops, though.

You can read the whole Zogby report here.