Bush in Europe

It seems Bush and "old Europe" are in disagreement about the future of NATO (link):

President George Bush's attempt to heal the rift with Europe on Iraq was marred by fresh differences over the role of Nato.
Tony Blair joined Mr Bush in hailing the alliance as the "cornerstone" of the trans-Atlantic relationship, under repair in the wake of the war.
But French President Jacques Chirac backed German suggestions that Nato should take a back seat to the European Union.

In early posts I had talked about the possibility of the EU functioning as a counter-balance to the United States, and the above seems to lend some support to that position. However, I thought this was really interesting:

Mr Bush hit back with a warning that the "most successful alliance in the history of the world" must not be taken for granted.
And in an echo of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's dig at "old Europe", he pointedly said "new" East European members did not do so.

The reason I find this so interesting is because the US has done one heck of a job at attempting to destroy another successful alliance--namely the UN. Rumsfeld's distinction between "old" and "new" Europe was in fact part of this strategy. So, it seems really hypocritical that Bush would now be doing what appears to be a complete 180 on the issue.

Of course, I think the only reason behind this is the incredibly vulnerable position the United States is in and so now they've got to do the diplomacy thing, if only because it's the only real option on the table.

This ain't good.

It seems that the shit may hit the fan over in Lebannon (more so than it already has at least). And this just can't be a good thing when Syria gets involved, especially given their more overtly aggressive stance towards the United States.

Syrian forces began distributing weapons to groups supporting Damascus and the 1.4 million expatriate laborers in the country...The sparks will fly in earnest when government and Syrians move into aggressive mode to crush the opposition, which will become increasingly inflamed by multiplying leads to Syria and its Lebanese minions as Hariri’s assassins.

More on Iran

I think Kos did a much better job of explaining what the implications are for Iraq's elections in terms of their relationship with Iran:

What's more, that "nice Shiite democracy" will be allied with the administration's latest boogeyman -- Iran, and is already starting to exhibit Taliban-like tendencies. So if we had a nice Shiite democracy, we could at least salvage something from this quagmire Bush dragged us into. Instead, it looks like we did Iran's dirty work for them -- installing a fundamentalist Islamic government allied with one of the US's top foreign enemies.

Further, the situation no longer seems to be isolated to Iran:

(link)

Iran and Syria heightened tension across the Middle East and directly confronted the Bush administration yesterday by declaring they had formed a mutual self defence pact to confront the "threats" now facing them.

This was also interesting:

Syria and Iran do not have a natural affinity but are alleged by western governments to have engaged in covert military cooperation in the past.

So how on earth it can be said that the invasion of Iraq has functioned to stabilze the region is really beyond me. The converse seems to be occurring. I guess one could say that in the long term there may be some stability in the region as a result, but that's entirely speculative and pretty silly seeing as how everything seems to be pointing in the opposite direction.
What I think is interesting is that the last sentence cited implies that there really hasn't been a substantial relationship between Iran and Syria to mertit calling them part of an "axis of evil", but as what appears to be a direct result of U.S. foreign policy that all seems to be changing. Of course, if this administration then turns around and says something like "see, we told you so" my head is just going to fucking explode.

Anti-democratic-democratic elections

It seems that the good poeple of Iraq have decided to elect a government with strong ties to Iran and strong religious base. Story here. Also, lets not forget that the Iranian-born Shite cleric that holds so much sway in the region was, according to some commentators at least, the primary impetus behind getting the elections off the ground. That is to say, it wasn't until he demanded them that elections became a reality.
The upshot of all this is that it may be the case that Iran and Iraq are a package deal because the Shite dominated Iranian government could easily exercise de facto control over an Iraq in its infancy. And as everything above seems to suggest, the pieces are all starting to fall in place. So, the PNAC or whatever may have figured out that if there's a snowball's chance in hell of one working without the other.

Freedom is on the March!

I'm sick and tired of hearing these assholes on the right prematurely declare victory. News from Baghdad:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Insurgents have killed 21 Iraqis and two U.S. soldiers in recent assaults, showing there has been no respite in the fight against U.S.-led forces and their allies since Sunday's election.

I just think it's a bit early to start talking about how this is a victory for the Bush administration. It seems to me the prudent thing to do would be to wait and see if there's any perceptible change.

And let's not forget:

The situation in Afghanistan is not much better, the impoverished nation continues to be torn apart by warlords competing for power and a slice of the drug trade.

Legitimacy

Here's an article from the Christian Science Monitor which confirms what we all thought: that the security set up at the election kept many Sunnis from being able to vote. Interestingly enough, Anderson Cooper was on the Daily Show the other night and his perception of the election was basically that they were able to go off because the security was so tight. As he put it, Bagdhad was shut down prior to and during the election. That is, there were no cars, no nothing. I think the phrase he used was "marshall law".