Jim Lobe: Hawks Resurgent?

[laststeamtrain]

Hawks Resurgent?

Analysis by Jim Lobe*

WASHINGTON, Apr 25 (IPS) - Are the latest accusations and tough language leveled against Iran, Syria, and North Korea evidence of a resurgence by the remaining hawks in the administration of President George W. Bush hoping for a final confrontation against one or more members of the revised "axis of evil" before his term next January?
That's the big question here this week, particularly following Thursday's long-awaited intelligence briefings to Congress about alleged North Korean involvement in the construction of a "covert nuclear reactor" in Syria that was destroyed in a raid by Israeli warplanes in September last year.

According to some interpretations, the briefing's timing and content appeared deliberately designed to raise tensions between Washington, on the one hand, and Pyongyang and Damascus, on the other, potentially derailing ongoing long-running negotiations between the State Department and North Korea and Turkish-mediated peace feelers between Israel and Syria.

That Vice President Dick Cheney, whose opposition to engaging both North Korea and Syria and support for "regime change" in both countries is both well known and of long standing, had pushed hard for the briefing to take place has added to speculation that a major power play by the hawks to reverse the diplomacy that has dominated Bush's second term is underway.

Rumours that the State Department's point man on North Korea, Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill -- whose latest accord with Pyongyang negotiated in Singapore earlier this month has been the target of fierce right-wing attacks led by Cheney chum, former U.N. Amb. John Bolton -- has told associates that he will resign next month have added to concerns that the hawks have regained the initiative, at least on that front.

Add the promotion of Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq who has overseen the past year's "surge" of U.S. troops, to take over the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) this summer, as well as the increasingly harsh charges against Iran's alleged interference in Iraq that have been coming out of the Pentagon in recent days.

All these developments are seen by some as an answer to the prayers of neo-conservatives...

<more>

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42135

[acmavm]

1. They only have a few more months until the election so they have to

hurry up their plans. When they first came into office the neocons and KKKarl thought they would have a clear hundred years at the helm at least. They were building a dynasty. All their plans, dreams, and schemes have gone belly up. Nothing has turned out as they thought it would. They thought Iraq, if it went as planned, would put them in power for generations.

Well, Iraq wasn't the brilliant scheme they thought it would be. And it highlighted the criminality of these people. And it has put them all in jeopardy, for one day they just may all be tried as war criminals (if there is justice in this world).