"...now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country..."

I've typed that a million times - like many of you, probably - while practicing typing skills, under my mom's tutelage. I've always liked that it ended with "country", and not the original wording of the phrase, which is "party."  

I just came back from a discussion on Iran and US Foreign Policy with Scott Ritter and former US Diplomat Edward Peck, hosted by Cleveland Peace Action at Trinity Cathedral in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio. After some brief introductory words, Scott Ritter gave a 20-minute presentation about the looming US military action against Iran.

If you haven't yet seen this film - I strongly urge you to watch it. It's currently playing on Comcast's On Demand. You can also rent it. For more info on it and trailers, you can also go to www.whywefightmovie.com

In his latest article in the New Yorker, veteran reporter Seymour Hersch explores the complex geopolitical calculus in the Middle East.  The article is long and deep, and I had to read it twice to follow Hersch's underlying narrative.  That narrative might be summarized as:  the Bush Administration's new strategy in the Middle East is to use Iran, and the Shi'a, as a convenient foil.  If true, this marks the advent of a third phase in the U.S.

A repeated meme of the GOP House members, echoing a frequent Bush theme, has been that "we're fighting the terrorists in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here."  As a GOP memo outlined, their strategy is to avoid discussing whether any our objectives in Iraq are attainable.  They know they will lose, because every informed source including the recent NIE says those obje

(This blog was inspired by Phyl's and Jai's comments beginning here in Maddy's blog, "What's with Wes.")

Phyl and Jai (along with others) commented on Gen. Clark's proposal for a "surge in democracy" in the Middle East. They usually add that it's not going to happen under Bush's watch.

Those comments gave me an idea: Can Congress send a diplomatic mission to the area? Can Congress do precisely what Wes Clark have been suggesting? Send an airplane-load of high-level diplomats to the area's capitals and don't come back until they've spoken and, more imortantly, listened to all the stakeholders in the region?

The mission would, of course, be led by the brilliant statesman who has been proposing such a mission for years now.

The Clark Commission. That has a nice ring to it.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
If not now, WHO? If not now, WHEN?
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.

Back in the early 1980s, I read a fascinating article about "Bermuda Triangles" in international relations in Foreign Affairs magazine.  (I was not able to find that article in an online search today, and it appears that the term is used very differently nowadays.)  That author used "Bermuda Triangles" to describe three-way relationships where none of the parties fully trusts the others.  He cited the U.S.-Soviet-China and U.S.-China-Taiwan triads as examples.  His key point was that when three states are caught in a "Bermuda Triangle," none can seek a rapprochment with either of the others without the risk of alienating the third.  Absent some fundamental change, all three are trapped in a condition of mutual unease and distrust.