1. kuhnkat said:

This is a trick question RIGHT???

Let's try this conspiracy theory. The US can only attack self proclaimed terrorists or people aggressing them. The PA has never clearly aggressed against the US. The US allows Hamas to become the leading authority of the Disputed Territories. They then are open to the US attacking them and allowing Israel to attack them?? We then are able to stop Monetary support for the so-called Palestinians??

On the other paw, if they are NOT allowed to openly run for office they will use violence to intimidate those who are elected or simply put up faux candidates who are Hamas puppets. In that case they will still be collecting money from the west and the UN and we will still be playing the same fantasy game that there are actually PARTNERS for the Peace Process.

Hey, I'm grasping at straws here. Most other answers mean I need to start arming myself and like minded individuals for the revolution.

2. A Time To Speak said:

How long can serious observors go on not noticing that the Bush-Baker-Carlyle clique that bought the Oval Office do not intend to have Israel around indefinitely?

They cannot yet openly come out against the existence of Israel -- as long as the majority of the American people and Congress would not be happy with that.

So they are starting my making Israel shrink so in strength and morale that it will -- they hope -- become non-viable.

All in the interest of peace, New World Order, and their own allowances from the oil sheiks.

How long is it since the wise pundits of the US media and establishment were calling Bush "The greatest friend of Israel since [fill in the blank -- going back as far as King Cyrus].

How many have thus far realized that they were duped? And will they admit it?

3. Isaac said:

"The US has Israel by the balls"

This applies doubly in the case of Iran, in particular with respect to US policy in Iraq. There's been serious anger expressed on this blog about US and British nonchalance towards Iran's virtual takeover of Iraq and the green light that the US and UK have basically given for it, and with damn good reason. It's obvious to any policy wonk with 1/10 of remaining brain function that the most dangerous organizations in Iraq by far are the Shiite militias, and the Badr Brigades in particular.

The Badr Brigades are the single greatest threat in the Mideast, far more than Hezbollah, vastly more even than Hamas. The Badr Brigade members have trained in Iran for decades, essentially answer to and are funded by the Iranian mullahs, and effectively do Iran's dirty work for it. Now, the Shiite militias are dangerously powerful, since they're affiliated with the SCIRI party of that Iranian agent, Abdel Aziz Hakim, and the Dawa party and have basically concentrated the military and police power of the Iraqi state in their hands. They are essentially bringing the Iraqi state with its incredible wealth into Iran's grasp, and the US and Britain just stand there and let it happen, while wasting their limited firepower (and political capital) on the Sunni Ba'ath insurgents, who are the only ones who can realistically bring down the deadly Iranian puppet government taking shape in Baghdad. This is shaping up to be the worst foreign policy blunder since Napoleon decided to spend a winter vacation in Russia-- Iran is on the brink of becoming the unchallengeable master of the entire Middle East and the Persian Gulf oil fields and shipping routes, and yet the US is doing nothing about it!!!

It's unfortunately not too difficult to figure out why the Bush Administration is basically just sitting on its hands while Iran takes control of Iraq through its Badr Brigade proxies-- the Bush Administration is politically feeble and afraid of taking the aggressive steps that everyone recognizes are needed to check the power of Iran and the Badr Brigades. I don't think that Condi Rice is necessarily an Israel-hater, as some other posters here have been writing-- I just sense that she's basically indifferent to Israel one way or the other, and she's in way over her head here while being too proud and arrogant to admit it. She's a Sovietologist, damnit. There's nothing wrong with that per se, but she's not the one who should be guiding Bush's decisions so much on the Middle East. She doesn't know what she's doing, and her utter failure to appreciate the danger of the Badr Brigades and their takeover of Iraq makes her totally unqualified to be occupying such a high office.

Her colleagues in the Bush Administration aren't much better. Dick Cheney is too caught up in his own ego and power drunkenness to actually think straight. Donald Rumsfeld is so hopelessly obsessed with his pet project of the "leaner, meaner US armed forces" that he can't see the forest for the trees and readjust his policies to meet the threat of the Shiite militias. And the neocons that so many anti-Semites rant about as being so pro-Israeli? Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and the other idiots in the Bush Administration keep blah-blahing about democracy this, democracy that while failing to realize that democracy needs a lot of other things (cultural things especially) to work. Otherwise, as in the Palestinian territories and in Iraq, it's just a fig leaf for bloodthirsty Islamist fanatics to claim some legitimacy for the same deadly ambitions they've had before.

There's an obvious reason why the Bush and Blair Administrations are acquiescing like wimpy little cowards to the threat of the Badr Brigades in Iraq-- they think it's the path of least resistance for them to get out of Iraq without the media paying too much attention to the impending disaster of their own making, while leaving a subsequent administration holding the bag and forced to clean up the mess as Iran basically gets control of the entire Persian Gulf and launches its long-awaited war of civilizations. WE CAN'T LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THIS!

It's the responsibility of everyone on Israpundit and other blogs who cares about Israel, the free world and the mortal threat of the Iranians, to hit the Bush Administration hard, to not let them take the easy way out of letting the Badr Brigades take control, to let them know that the political price will be heavy and unsustainable if they don't confront the threat of this Iranian proxy army. Politics often makes strange bedfellows and this is no exception-- although the Sunni Ba'athists are generally portrayed as the enemy of the US in Iraq, with scarce and precious US firepower wasted on resistance bastions like Fallujah and Tel-Afar, the Sunni resistance is the only native Iraqi force actually capable of militarily standing in the way of Iran's ultimate super-empowerment upon taking possession of Iraq's resources. Therefore, the Sunni insurgents, as a few others here have written, are in effect the strongest US ally against the ultimate threat of the Iran-allied Shiite militias.

Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, oddly enough, could go either way and might even be useful as another bulwark against the Badr Brigades. Though the Madhi fighters are also fundamenatalist Shiite nuts, they don't have the same ties with Iran-- they largely trained in Iraq itself and if anything, bear some resentment against the Badr Brigades for leaving Iraq while the Mahdi fighters stayed and toughed it out. Also, the Sadrists are rivals with the Badr Brigades in cities like Basra. The Sadrists should also be selectively strengthened at the expense of the Badr Brigades. It's also time to accept that the Kurds are already basically independent, and help them-- over the years, not necessarily at once-- to break free and deprive Iran's Shiite militias, at least, of the oil in northern Iraq, before the Badr Brigades basically overwhelm Kurdistan with sheer numbers once they gain power.

Finally and most important, the US and Britain need to turn their guns and tanks against the Badr Brigades, the one true threat in Iraq. I'm not expecting much from the Brits since thus far, the performance of the British is perfectly in line with historical expectations-- they're basically useless on the battlefield, almost as useless as the French. The Brits are basically good for giving nice rousing speeches that sound so sweet to the ear and invigorating for the fighting spirit, but other than Agincourt and Trafalgar, the British are utterly incompetent and consistently losers when it comes to actual fighting-- someone else always needs to step in to actually fight the war. Even Churchill's Britain basically got kicked around all over the place in Norway, France, North Africa and of course Singapore, catching relief only when Hitler was kind enough to direct his bloody ambitions eastward instead. It was up to the US, Russia and the Chinese to do the actual fighting in that war.

But the US at least, has the toughness, firepower and training to crush the Badr Brigades for good and prevent Iran from basically seizing control of Iraq. We need to maintain the pressure on the Bush Administration to do what any sensible analyst knows it has to do, until the Administration leaders finally grow a pair and take down the Badr Brigades. If the US won't do it, then Israel may have to do so itself. This is national survival here, even if it doesn't look pretty to the cameras.