Sidelined Neo-Cons Stoke Future Fires

[G_j]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1008-01.htm

Published on Friday, October 8, 2004 by the Inter Press Service

Sidelined Neo-Cons Stoke Future Fires

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Sidelined by their failed predictions for Iraq and U.S. President George W Bush's efforts to reassure voters he is not a warmonger, prominent neo-conservatives and their Christian Right allies are nonetheless trying hard to prepare the ground for future U.S. adventures in the Middle East.

Echoing increasingly threatening noises from the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon about preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, neo-cons are calling for Washington to undertake covert action, at the very least, to oust what some of them call the ''terror masters'' in Tehran as part of a more general ''World War IV'' against alleged Arab and Islamic extremism.

Some neo-cons are even complaining that if Bush had been serious about the ''war on terrorism'', he should have taken on Iran after Afghanistan, rather than Iraq.

''Had we seen the war for what it was, we would not have started with Iraq, but with Iran, the mother of modern Islamic terrorism, the creator of Hezbollah, the ally of al-Qaeda, the sponsor of Zarqawi, the longtime sponsor of Fatah and the backbone of Hamas'', wrote part-time Pentagon consultant Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) this week.

..more..

[ewagner]

1. Actually

with the Neocons...ANY Middleeastern country will do just fine thank you.......

[Inland]

2. But that's why they picked Iraq--it was weak, and available,

and easy. Iran is powerful and actually dangerous. And now that Bush ahs screwed up the easy victory and tied down our army, the danger posed by Iran and North Korea is pretty much moot.

[VaYallaDawg]

3. Details, details.

"Eye-ran, Eye-rack, what's the difference, they're all the same, aren't they?"