I hate to admit it, but I’ve been suckered by the Obama administration. A few weeks ago the secretary of State announced, in effect, that the "war on terror" was over. From now on, the mass media informed us, the United States would be fighting only "overseas contingency operations." There was so much buzz about the end of the war that I was moved to write a column, do radio interviews, the whole bit. Very exciting!
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) apparently has a penchant for badness. For visiting Syria, the Speaker received a harsh reprimand by Vice President Dick Cheney who thought it “bad behavior.” Though the Speaker remained relatively un-phased by the scolding, Cheney made his point.
In the light of the passing of the late February deadline imposed by the UN Security Council Resolution 1737 and Iran’s refusal to comply, Washington is abuzz with wildly diverse plans regarding how to deal with Iran. Just days after the deadline, on February 24, Vice President Dick Cheney reiterated the Bush administration’s long standing position that “all options are on the table" if Tehran does not suspend uranium enrichment activities. On the other side of the spectrum, the announcement that the U.S. will attend the regional security conference held in Baghdad on March 10th and is open to talks with the representatives of Iran who will also be attending has highlighted the possibility of direct negotiations between the two countries
The transfer of current U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad from his job as the Great Wizard of Iraq’s embattled Emerald City in Baghdad’s Green Zone, to the quieter but no less complicated halls of the United Nations, may have several rationales.