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   During President Bush’s recent State of the Union address, I experienced a sinking feeling, when I noted when he mentioned Iran and Syria. Subsequently his rhetoric about Iran has become increasingly frequent, more specific, and more troubling.

    An extremely large portion of the news media, print and TV also noted that Bush’s rhetoric sounds ominously familiar. The talk of WMD, the threat to the safety of Americans (both here and abroad), Iran being included with Iraq and Syria in “The Axis of Evil,” (this is nothing new though), “evidence” of Iran training, supplying armaments, (if we use recovered armaments as a guide to possible enemies then I suppose we’ll have to declare war on ourselves, since most of the weapons that the insurgency is using were supplied by the United States, during a time when Saddam Hussein was an ally ... that seems to happen a lot) and supplying ground troops to the insurgency, all sounded eerily familiar to his rhetoric before declaring war on Iraq.

   The administration has used the recovered weapons as some sort of indicator that Iran is “involved,” even though General Pace, the head of U.S. forces in Iraq, and finally the Bush Administration has acknowledged that there is no evidence to lead someone to believe that the Iranian government has any knowledge, or has in any way sanctioned the weapons and technology. Iranian influence, in way or another has been known to exist in the area, ever since the war started. Why hasn’t the U.S. government expressed outrage before now? The timing of this “revelation” and prior faulty intelligence reports concerning Iraq is, at best, suspect. However President Bush has apparently decided to circumvent possibly faulty intelligence reports, and state that he really doesn’t need any concrete evidence, he just knows. 

    Parts of Congress—generally Republican—have taken up the old familiar banter (polarization lives). Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA) stated during the debate over the proposed House Nonbinding Resolution, “I fear that radical Muslims who want to control the Middle East, and ultimately the world, would love to see ‘In God We Trust’ stricken from our money, and replaced with, ’In Mohammed We Trust.’”   

   Claims that we are giving, “aid and comfort to the enemy” and “cut and run” are being recycled (at least they are recycling something), along with a new catch phrase that the Democratic Party is pursuing a “slow bleed” policy now in Iraq. It’s interesting that the phrase “slow bleed” is being attributed to the Democratic Party, and in particular to Representative Jack Murtha (D-PA) and to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), even though the true author, John Bresnahan, in a "Politico" Feb. 16 article has publicly come forth and stated that the term was not “used by any Democrats or the anti-war groups supporting their efforts.” Apparently to some Republicans (not all) ,the true danger to the United States is the Democratic Party. So it appears that the game of misdirection is again being played, and both sides play the game.

   In the meantime, two countries that intelligence sources have stated pose a more serious threat, in regards to U.S. safety are Pakistan and (drum roll please) Afghanistan. Now why does the name Afghanistan sound familiar? Oh! That’s right we’re also fighting a war there. In fact, didn’t we first declare war on Afghanistan? Right, we were after some guy name Osama bin Laden (I don’t think we got him) and some groups named al Qaeda and the Taliban. Aren’t some of the troops that are to go for the surge in Iraq coming from Afghanistan?

   Michael Scheuer, former Head of the CIA’s bin Laden Unit, during an interview on MSNBC’s "Countdown with Keith Olberman," states that, “Iraq was a containable country, the Iranians are no threat to the United States, unless we provoke them, they may be a threat to Israelis, they are not to the United States. The threat to the United States, inside the United States comes from al Qaeda; al Qaeda is in Afghanistan and Pakistan …”

   Even President Bush has noted the buildup of al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. It appears that we have been trying to put out an already contained, inconsequential fire that showed no sign of becoming a threat in the near future. In fact we have been attempting to put out a fire with gasoline, and through our endeavors to bring democracy to a region that probably doesn’t want it, we have managed to destabilize the entire region. Meanwhile we have given only nominal attention to other fires that we thought we had extinguished, but has been smoldering waiting for an opportunity to flash into a conflagration, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

   We know that Pakistan has nuclear weapons and the resources to deliver them (even if they can’t attack the U.S. proper); it has also become a safe haven for the Taliban and al Qaeda. The president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf,  is on shaky footing, with the possibility of his being assassinated or being removed from office by a coup being definitely within the realm of possibility, and with al Qaeda  in a perfect position to move into the vacuum. It is chilling to imagine al Qaeda with a nuclear weapon, as well the ability to deliver it, even if not dealt to the United States, the ramifications upon the environment, the finances, the societies, of anywhere that it could be detonated would be devastating. The consequential ripple effect would be felt in every country. Vice President Cheney’s visit to the region shows that at least the government is aware of the situation.          

    It is ironic and possibly tragic that the country that legitimately posed a threat to the United States -- Afghanistan -- that most people -- both Democrats and Republicans -- agreed needed to be dealt with, that was the stronghold of the Taliban and al Qaeda (and is becoming so again), was deemed as being contained and subsequently largely ignored. Even if one accepts the premise of the U.S. soldier being without equal, a premise that I heartily accept, it smacks of arrogance to believe that we could succeed with 40,000 troops where the former Soviet Union couldn’t, during the 1980s, succeed with 150,000 troops.

   We plain and simply don’t have the armed forces, regardless of how good and heroic they are, to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as trying to address threatening situation in Pakistan, and then possibly trying to involve Iran directly through military actions. Particularly if there is no concrete evidence, only suppositions, that are in the same category as accusing the Iranian government of engaging in suspicious and unknown  hanky-panky. Maybe we should shift our focus to other regions that are a major threat to the United States inside the United States It’s only a suggestion.

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