"Turning points"

Regarding political/policy discussions in the blogosphere, I greatly admire the big-picture bloggers I know of, and Steve Clemons of The Washington Note is one of the best. Here, he quotes from and comments on a recent Sidney Blumenthal piece in Salon. Go read.

I have nothing to add, really, except my musing that, for some time now, all this talk of "turning points" in Iraq has come to resemble my dog's chasing his tail and that, while it's hysterical in its absurdity when Scruffy does it, it is most assuredly NOT funny when a nation--our nation--is all too ready to deploy the rhetoric of freedom (rhetoric, even rhetoric about freedom, is just words after all, and talk is cheap), but not at all ready to deploy the various means necessary to secure that freedom . . . and, as Blumenthal and Clemons point out, both our allies and our enemies are watching and taking our measure with regard to what to do about Iran.

What wrecking the present administration has done to what we say we stand for as a nation in just six years, especially considering the enormous international sympathy we received in the wake of 9/11--not two centuries of meddling in Latin America*, not Vietnam, did this much damage--is beyond breathtaking. My fervent wish is that it not be beyond repair.

*Edit: Obviously--and rightly so--Latin Americans would have a rather different take on this particular observation. I was caught up in the moment above; thus the historical sloppiness.


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Iran, Iraq, Policy