Headlines of the day

Psychopaths have faulty brain connections, scientists find

Liz Cheney Hopes We Don't Have to "Roast a Few Marsh-Mullahs" in Iran

Like father, like daughter....

Elsewhere in her remarks, Liz Cheney says:

The purpose of diplomacy is not to be liked.

Right. The purpose of diplomacy is to tell countries they are on the axis of evil list so they make frantic efforts to get a nuke before getting nuked.

We'll remember that.

Walter Cronkite was right

About Bush and Cheney's excellent adventure in Iraq. At the beginning of the war, he voiced opinions that were never given press:

President George Bush recently announced a new doctrine that gives the U.S. the right to take unilateral militarily action against any country or group that threatens our national interests. I think it is about as a dangerous foreign policy as a nation could adopt. It violates international law and the whole theory—and hopes—that world peace rests with the United Nations. It would destroy the United Nations. Why should Washington be so peremptory? Presumably, we don’t assign this same right to any other nation. I assume this policy is limited to the United States. How does that set with the rest of the world? It is aggressive and dangerously so.

The era of American unilateralism is over.

"And an era -- that of American unilateralism -- is over. If the commission has its way - and it undoubtedly will - then there will be an international conference on the situation in the Middle East. That includes talks between America and two countries that have so far remained taboo: Syria and Iran. Syria has at least two faces: that of Bashar al-Assad, the eye doctor with former residence in London who knows how the West thinks and maybe even thinks like the West himself; and that of the old regime, which thinks the loss of its sphere of influence in Lebanon would be an egregious mistake and diligently grants its full praise to al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas. It wouldn't be bad if it finally came to light, which of Syria's faces is the real face.

The era of allowing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to drag on is also over. Israel quickly made up for America's mistakes in Iraq with its invasion of Lebanon. The little king of Jordan recently remarked that without some special efforts to contain the conflicts in the region, then the world could soon be dealing with three wars there: Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.

And it is the end of the era of "we-are-not-leaving-Iraq-as-long-as-the-Iraqis-don't-want-us-to" rhetoric. There will be a phased retreat and a phased reduction of troops. The commission's package deal is almost as ingenious as it is treacherous: If the Iraqi government manages, slowly but surely, to put an end to the insurgency and the bloodletting on its own, then US troops will gradually pull out. If, on the other hand, there is no end to the murders and assassinations -- if the government proves helpless in the face of the growing civil war -- then the US will pull out sooner. There is no room for sentimentality anymore."