Obviously, you were not paying attention. The reason that 'we' weren't greeted with flowers in Baghdad is because they were saving them for the liberation of Iran, their much admired brothers-who-need-liberating-so-as-to-have-the-sweets-of-democracy there too.

The bombing is the end game. There will be no repercussions except a humiliated Iranian clergy who will be all Jimmy Swaggart apologizing, and crying as they leave office. No microphones required, we will hear the shouts of joy from everywhere, "Yes; we have democracy, just like our Palestinian brothers!"

The US will beg GWB to stay for a 3rd term, we will feel all so very 9-11-changes-everything-protected.

I saw Richard Pearle on the News Hour last night and while he was saying that the reports that there are serious plans to bomb Iraq, no sorry check that, Iran and that a diplomatic solution is being sought for the Iraqi, oops sorry my mistake again, Iranian problem, that there is a strong democracy movement in Iraq, damn it I mean Iran and given the slightest support/incentive they will overthrow the mad mullahs and usher in a golden age of utopian democracy. Well, he didn’t use those exact terms, he didn’t even mention rose petals or flowers of any sort, but you get the drift. Any reporting otherwise is just the irresponsible members of the press, i.e. Sy Hersh, at it again. Richard Pearle did single out Sy Hersh saying he has been wrong in almost all his reporting.

few times myself.

modern warfare is a business, pure & simple. as long as power is projected far enough to cause minimal risk to a local population, it is a convienent way to generate huge expenditures that don't have to be justified or controled. just visit
http://iraqrevenuewatch.org/ to see the latest manifestation of this approach.

this 20th-century model of gunboat diplomacy is increasingly made obsolete in the era of the suicide bomber. but, like most historic trends, it takes institutions a long time to come around to new realities. in the meantime, we are all combatants.

...and you're still planning a trip to Iran?

Sean-Paul, I have to think that your sense of self-preservation is giving you second thoughts on this adventure. Iran may be full of nice, hospitable people, but today its government is run by an Islamist fanatic. Any American touring Iran during this tense period might be accused of being a spy and summarily imprisoned, at best.

It won't matter if your Iranian friends vouch for you; the Iranian government will be looking for people to make examples of. They'll grab you off the street, hustle you away to some nasty prison, then pull a North Korea on you and make you read stupid video confessions from a script, and you'll try to blink T.O.R.T.U.R.E. with your eyelids, but you won't be able to remember Morse code, so it will just look goofy.

Then you'll rot in an Iranian prison until another Republican presidential candidate makes a secret deal to sell weapons to Iran, and you'll owe your freedom to the military industrialists who run the fucking GOP.

Is that what you want??

"Death before being dishonored any more." - Col. Ted Westhusing