[Dog]

This is a major show of weakness ....after the ambassador announced that we would call Iran's bluff and prove the meddling.

I can't believe this stupidity.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

From the BBC report linked above on the Fallon confirmation....tacked on at the end.....

******************************************

Separately, John Negroponte, the first US director of intelligence and a former ambassador to Iraq and to the UN, for the post of deputy secretary of state, answered questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

He backed recent tough talk towards Iran, saying Tehran was meddling in Iraq, and insisted that a diplomatic channel was already open with Syria.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Well try this on for stupid....article from the Guardian ...linkage to the CQ:

January 30, 2007
Damning Us For Our Success

*********************88AN EXCERPT *************************

Ali Ansari has a strange column in today's Guardian regarding Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and US hawks. He wants to argue that Ahmadinejad's presidency is failing and that the economic pressures on the Iranian economy have accelerated his decline. However, he then claims that American hawks may yet save Ahmadinejad and scold us for not propping him up:

Ahmadinejad was elected on a platform of anti-corruption and financial transparency, and few appreciated how rapidly he was intoxicated with the prerogatives of his office. He very soon forgot the real help he had received in ensuring his election, basking in the belief that God and the people had put him in power. Ahmadinejad soon had a view for all seasons: uranium enrichment. Of course Iran would pursue this, and what's more, sell it on the open market at knockdown rates. As for interest rates, they were far too high for the ordinary borrower, so cut them immediately. And then there was the Holocaust.