Thank you, Sameer, for reminding us of this absolutely crucial issue, especially in light of the uninsightful smiley face view in that op-ed. I hope Obama will inject exactly this reality in the election debate.

What would a blockade of Iran look like? The Bush administration sending American warships and military equipment into the most combustible region in the world. Their mission? Board and inspect cargo entering and leaving Iran by any means necessary.1 This would be a clear provocation and the first step on the path to all out war.

Unfortunately, that's exactly what Democrats who want to look tough on national security are demanding. Right now there is a resolution working its way through the House of Representatives which would require a naval blockade of Iran and bring us closer to war.1 This resolution already has 247 co-sponsors and it must be stopped.

Tell your Representative to oppose the Ackerman Iran resolution:

http://www.TrueMajority.org/NoBlockade

For the past 10 months, we've been warning against the perils of starting yet another war in the Middle East. Together, we've sent thousands of messages to Congress demanding that Congress have to approve any military action and our Iran Mobile has traveled to events across the country to highlight how crazy it is to start another war. Still, our work is just beginning. Between now and November, we'll have ample opportunity to remind our legislators that there are other ways of being tough on national security than acting like George Bush Republicans.

We need an active policy of engagement and diplomacy, and there is absolutely no reason for Congress to even consider escalating the war of words with aggressive belligerent action.

Thanks for taking action,

-Darcy

Darcy Scott Martin
TrueMajority.org Washington Director

wall st journal - news outlet for the far right.. if anyone thinks they will get something objective out of it when it comes to political type coverage, forget it...

It’s hardly surprising, that people like Sameer Lalwani, Juan Cole, and so many others from the liberal UNIMAGINATIVE intelligentsia who have been so abysmally wrong about their prognostications of the war in Iraq, now that the war is being won are petulant and sulky and manufacture shoddy and specious arguments by invoking the indisputable evidence of the sufferings of the war such as civilians killed and refugees, to TRUMP the real triumph of the war after the surge and the new political configuration that is dawning in Iraq auguring a bright future for all Iraqis, that could serve, moreover, as a possible model for the whole Middle East. One would have expected after the dismal military situation that U.S. troops were facing in Iraq before the surge that every American would be proud of what their forces accomplished post-surge under the capable and savant leadership of General Petraeus.

Lalwani attempts to overturn this great event with what: With the art of a conjurer. He turns the RETREAT of al Sadr’s militia facing decimation by American-Iraqi forces into CONSOLIDATION of his forces; the attack on Iraqi recruits killing thirty-three of them in Diyala by a suicide bomber is considered to be by him a show of the continued VIGOR of the insurgency; and the tragic misery and agony of the refugees is a proof to him that the war has accomplished nothing.

Lalwani, Cole, and the aureole liberal intelligentsia, have suffered their intellectual Waterloo in the argument about the war. A Waterloo in whose battle, unlike Napoleon, they were neither by disposition, mettle, and strategic sagacity ever qualified to be in.

Yes Kotz, "unimiginative" is the key word here.

So many of us, unable to access the crystal ball of our leaders, were unable to imagine Iraqis greeting us with roses as we invaded their soveriegn nation. We also had an extremely difficult time imagining the WMDs that so many experts were telling us didn't exist. And sin of sins, we just couldn't get our minds around imagining that the Iraqis would stand quietly by as we privatized and sold off their nation's natural resources.

And speaking for myself, I am still stricken with this failure of imagination. Completely unable to conjure up the impression that you are sane or sentient, I find it hard to imagine what it must be like to utter your brand of fantasy if in fact it is founded in conviction. Your's must be a separate reality, based entirely in the limitless world of the human imagination.

I wonder, is it comfortable in there, or do you feel a constant nagging paranoia that one grim day, reality might intrude?

The Kagans are noted for creating their own reality..They are noted for fashioning input reality filters that grounds out the negatives, and allows only the positives for amplification that op ed pieces in friendly havens can provide.

Expectation congruence in what was prophesized by the Kagans about the fruits of the Iragi surge must be attempted in order to protect their herniated credibility. Never mind the twisting of "what is" to get that congruence. Setting the stage for "I told you so", when our military leaves, and chaos still reigns in Iraq, may be the aim of the piece, and is expected from Mr. Kagan.

What Lalwani, Cole, and the Left can't wrap their heads around is
that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps has won the war in Iraq. This
despite the catastrophic failings of the political class here at home
in Iraq. The Iranians have been denied their maximalist aims, and
we have been denied ours. So both sides can sit down to deal, and
so they are. Behind closed doors, of course.

And so, their western frontier secure, the Iranians are prepared to
deal, provided the United States is prepared to recognize their
position in the Gulf and their interests. Which we, apparently, have
been for quite some time.

The makings of a deal are in the offing.

section9,

Nobody but the god of war won this war. The US did succeed in weakening itself in the world, debilitating its own military, and strengthening Iran's position. Iraq is mostly barely functional, has a devastated infrastructure, likely a million dead civilians and another four million either internally displaced or as refugees, primarily in Jordan, and Baghdad has experienced what amounts to ethic cleansing to control the sectarian homicides that did not exist before we invaded, basically destroyed, and then occupied, to very little benefit for the average Iraqi, the majority of whom want us to please go home.

We didn't win jack shit, unless you think the prospect of American oil companies regaining control of Iraqi oil, which Saddam had nationalized, at a cost of about $2 trillion to American taxpayers before its all over, along with all those people killed, maimed, and/or displaced, somehow can be celebrated as victorious. Sorry, but your definition of victory, if by any definition we can claim victory in this misguided, immoral war of choice/aggression, is clearly different than mine as an idealistic American whose father served in WWII, a war we really did have to fight once it came to war, and a war we did win, although Mars claimed his cut in very, very large numbers.

Yes, the makings of a deal are in the offing, because we must leave Iraq, and because attacking Iran is dumb beyond belief.

The surge worked because Sadr said so, by telling elements in the country to scale down fighting.

To Surge or Insurge, that is the question.....we won nothing... all The Surge did, besides kill and maim many more people, was bring us back to Square One...that is the new reality.

After all factions of the Iraqi population particpated in the election, they worked together in drafting and adopting their Constitution and proposing a Peace Plan which included an agreement with the Sunni to lay down their arms if we withdrew within two years. There WAS political unity in Iraq at that point. we rejected the Peace Plan and the Insurgency began. We then started paying the Sunni to not kill our troops. really smart strategists at work here, eh?

UN Security Council authorization for our presence in Iraq is about to expire in Dec. and Maliki is not going to ask for it to be renewed. end of story. Last May, the Iraqi Parliament voted overwhelmingly, to petition the UNSC to NOT RENEW our authorization to stay in iraq, on Mailiki's invitation alone. they want the question put to their Parliament for a vote. So how is the UNSC going to do authorize our presence there, without an invitation from their Parliament? How is that victory?

Victory to Dopey and Darth will be when they pass our oil law and not before. Even if the UNSC does not renew our authorization, I see Darth saying "So? We're occupiers, whatcha gonna do about it?"

Is it my imagination that only 10 posts (with this one 11)? given that this is one of the most important issues and other subjects have over 5 times as many posts?

When does reality set in for Americans?
Will even Steve comment on the surge????

Ok, dalivision, here`s the 12`th comment – not directly ON
topic, but directly related TO the topic:

What is the actual Obama strategy?

In very general terms, you could say that Barack Obama wants
to remove American troops from the 2. front (Iraq) to the 1.
front (Afghanistan), with a possibility of extending the 1. front
to the northern parts of Pakistan.

In other words: OBAMA IS PROMOTING A SURGE IN
AFGHANISTAN INSTEAD OF IRAQ. (And then there is the risk of a
3. front (Iran) opened before he perhaps become the president,
or while he is in charge.)

I`m surprised that this is discussed so little here and elsewhere.

Here`s a handful of obvious questions:

1) How will ordinary Americans react, if the only tangible results
of the "Change" in foreign policy from Bush to Obama are that
more of their young kids are sent home - maimed or in coffins
- from Afghanistan (and possibly Pakistan), than from Iraq?

2) Is it wise to suggest a "surge" in Afghanistan, or is victory
impossible with military means?

3) What are the risks, if that front is extended to parts of
Pakistan? How will the regional dynamics develop under a
surge, given a weak Afghan and Pakistani government,
substantial support for Islamists within the Pakistani army and
intelligence - just to mention a few points?

4) How will the trans-Atlantic relationship develop, if the US
under Obama will demand more soldiers from European
countries to fight in Afghanistan (and possibly Pakistan), and
lesser restrictions regarding WHERE they`re sent to fight?

These questions will surely be discussed intensely in the
months and years to come, both in the US and in Europe and
elsewhere. Perhaps it`s wise to raise them at a time when it
makes sense to discuss them – before they become mere
academic issues, post factum.

The "surge"? Dalivision has aptly named himself, as only a surrealist would see this scam as "one of the most important issues". If one is to view the "surge" as an important issue, one should be honest about what it represents. The name was adopted because of it being a policy that upped the number of troops in Iraq. Never mind that the American people were given fraudulent numbers, nor told about the huge number of support personnel that were required. The real con-job is this premise that it is a surge in troop numbers that has been responsible for the alleged reductions in violence. Truth is, it was a shift in policy, having nothing to do with troop numbers. We simply shifted alliances, and allied ourselves with yesterday's "enemies", namely the "sunni insurgents", "former Baathists", and "Saddam loyalists". And the "success" of this "surge" can be measured in the amount of dollars we have paid out to bribe Iraqi factions that would sooner slit our throats than look at us.

So, I must disagree with Dalivision. "The most important" issue facing us is how to convince these pathetic cowards in Washington to frog march George Bush a Dick Cheney out of our White House, and up the stairs of a good old fashioned gallows, erected on the White House lawn. After waterboarding, of course, and completely without the benefit of habeas corpus, representation, or a trial.

Good for the goose, good for the gander. After all, they're just enemy combatants.

We cannot win a war crime.

No matter what happens.

I heard today that the US is building an airbase in Halabja, Iraq - near the Iranian border.

This ain't over by a long shot.

Sadly, the warmongers will kill lots more, and people like section9 and kotzabasis will cheer them on from a distance.

Susan... exactly right.. we cannot win a war crime...