Romney: Who’s to blame for my past liberalism? Why, the liberals, of course.
It’s done: The 2008 Democratic National Convention is heading to Denver.
This just out from Bloomberg …
U.S. forces in Iraq raided Iran’s consulate in the northern city of Arbil and detained five staff members, a state-run Iranian news service said.
The U.S. soldiers disarmed guards and broke open the consulate’s gate before seizing documents and computers during the operation, which took place today at about 5 a.m. local time, the Islamic Republic News Agency said. There was no immediate information on whether any of those detained are diplomats.
The raid follows a warning yesterday to Iran and Syria from President George W. Bush in his address to the American people on a new strategy for Iraq. Bush accused Iran and Syria of aiding the movement of “terrorists and insurgents” in and out of Iraq and said the U.S. will “seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies.”
I trust we can treat it as a given that the timing here is not coincidental. Also, isn’t this a little iffy in terms of diplomatic protocol? Breaking into a consulate and seizing documents and computers?
Late Update: TPM Reader RB chimes in …
I don’t agree with raiding the iranian consulate unless they were actively using as a base rearm fighters. But if there is one thing in the world the Iranians don’t have much moral authority on vis a vis the US it is respect for international law in relation to consulary rights and the rights of employees within.
Historical irony abounds.
Doesn’t change the larger issue. But, yeah, good point.
Later Update: US forces appear to be disputing whether the building was really a consulate, in the official diplomatic sense.
I don’t usually do a lot linking or commenting on John Derbyshire at The Corner. But, via Andrew Sullivan, Derbyshire makes a pretty damn good point about President Bush’s latest ‘policy’ on Iraq.
According to Bush, defeat is not acceptable in Iraq. Okay, heard that before. We can’t leave before victory is achieved. Check.
But the logic of the ‘surge’ is that we’re also cracking down on Maliki. We’re giving him one more chance to get it right. And if they won’t do their part, we’re outta there. Or in other words, we pull up stakes without acheiving victory.
But President Bush’s oft-restated promise to stay in Iraq forever sort of gives Maliki the wink-n-nod that it doesn’t really matter what he does. We’re staying regardless.
So the whole thing is silly and makes no sense in the the simplest logical terms.
Of course, we might also mention the point that the incomparable John Burns made on Anderson Cooper’s show last night: that it’s silly to really believe that Maliki is going to try to crush the Mahdi Army when they a) give him the votes to remain Prime Minister and b), more importantly, those are the fighters Maliki is planning on using the Civil War really gets cracking. As Burns put it, they’re Maliki’s Plan B.
Kevin Drum knocks down some Jonah Goldberg crap. An on-going job.
The Pentagon is still refusing to declassify the number of enemy attacks during the bloodiest months in Iraq.
Ex-Rep. Bob Ney (R-Abramoff) asks the judge to be sent to rehab.
Rudy Giuliani, during a visit to Sean Hannity’s alternate universe last night: “I think it was only a month ago that many of these Democrats were talking about increasing the number of troops in Iraq.” See the video here.
I’m getting some hints that this raid on the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq may be part of something much bigger. Is there a classified presidential directive to the CIA and DOD to take down Syrian and Iranian operations inside Iraq, even so far as operations into Iranian and Syrian territory? And is the aim here to provoke a conflict with one or the other of these states? To provoke an attack from Iran perhaps? The plan from the neocons was always to build the chaos outwards. Never too late, I guess. Watch this. Something’s up.
Steve Clemons has more.