In today’s Washington Post:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice indicated yesterday that the situation is not yet ripe for U.S. diplomatic intervention.
"We have to make certain that anything that we do is going to be of lasting value," Rice said during a brief session with reporters along with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. "The Middle East has been through too many spasms of violence, and we have to deal with underlying conditions so that we can create sustainable conditions for political progress there."
Rice added: "When it is appropriate and when it is necessary and will be helpful to the situation, I am more than pleased to go to the region."
We’ve got several choices here. The first is that our government has learned something, something about not acting until we know what we’re doing. That doesn’t seem like a reasonable conclusion. It would be the first time.
Another possibility is that this is a lie, an excuse for not acting because we have a deal with Israel to do nothing and let them have their way with Hezbollah. That is way ahead as the most likely possibility, given the War-Monger nature of our current Administration, their "principle" of pre-emption, and the symbiotic relationship they have with Israel.
What got to me though, is remembering the latter part of 2002 and early 2003. During that time, I couldn’t imagine why everything they said had to do with needing to go to War with Iraq immediately. We couldn’t wait for the U.N.; we couldn’t wait for diplomacy, we couldn’t wait to evaluate the flimsy evidence we had for the Al Qaeda connection or the W.M.D. program. There was no hurry that I could see, yet it was clear that we were going to War A.S.A.P. without any provocation. What we now know beyond any shadow of doubt is that the Iraq War had nothing to do with any threat to the U.S.A. It had to do with a goofy Doctrine they’d cooked up in colusion with a bunch of neoconservative nut-cases about America’s Dominion over the world.
When I read what Dr. Rice says, I wish she’s said it back then – when it would have been an appropriate comment about Iraq, instead of now, when it’s likely a lie to cover a deal with the Israelis. I hate that this Administration has made me so jaded that I never take what they say as a simple truth, but immediately feel the need to look at the "spin" factor and figure out what is really going on…
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