The boy who cried wolf
2 comments March 21st, 2008
Let’s imagine for a moment that everything President Bush is saying about Iran and the threat it poses is true. I’m not sold, but let’s just say he’s right.
If that’s the case, there’s not much America can do about it, mainly because Bush has squandered our military and political resources with his ginned-up war in Iraq.
William Saletan, a liberal who supported the Iraq war at first, explains the pickle in a PIECE that includes this:
The problem with dumb war isn’t that it’s war. The problem is that it costs you the military, economic, and political resources to fight a smart war. Everything Bush wrongly attributed to Iraq turns out to be true of Iran. But we can’t confront Iran with the force it probably requires, because we wasted our resources in Iraq. Americans, having been suckered in Iraq, won’t accept evidence of Iran’s nuclear program. Countries that might have supported us in a strike on Iran won’t do so now, since we led them astray. Our coffers have been emptied to pay for the Iraq occupation. Our troops are physically and spiritually exhausted. In the name of strength, Bush has made us weak.