Replies

China and Russia want a nuclear Iran to act as a foil against the USA.

Indeed they do. They have been plotting this for more than a decade, after all. They expect us to defeat ourselves while we have been sucked dry of industry and technology, oil access, military readiness....and Capital that we control.

They are preparing the "ground" of the conflict. Bush is constantly letting them take the initiative. Constantly failing to confront them over their schemes. Wallowing in sappy bon homme'...and being taken to the cleaners. Sigh.

Meanwhile, it reminds me how much better Reagan was at ascertaining and exploiting the principles of Sun Tzu:

The most profound method the sage commander employs to attain victory is the extraordinary and the orthodox. He engages the enemy with what they expect. This is the orthodox, that which is familiar and understandable, what the enemy can easily see. It confirms their projections. However, the sage commander conquers the enemy with what they never imagine. This is the extraordinary. It is not any particular action but simply what the enemy does not expect.
To do so, he works with the enemy's perception of the world. If the enemy believes the sage commander's position to be protected, they will not attack; it does not matter if it is undefended in fact. More than anything, the sage commander must understand his enemy's processes of thought. Whatever the nature of someone's thinking, strong or weak, it forms a pattern. As such, it systematically includes and excludes. These are both its strengths and limitations. If the sage commander can discern the enemy's patterns, he knows what is orthodox within it. Then, in response, the extraordinary is apparent to him:

I think Reagan always had a more profound and penetrating understanding of the enemy. He got into their ideology in real depth...and made a life-long study of that enemy...communism. He knew how to play to their expectations, and against them. Thus, he was a truly sage commander fighting them.

I am convinced from what I have seen of President Bush that he does not begin to understand almost any of the unreconstructed Communists who masquerade as if they were. And he constantly takes the camouflaging assertions of the enemy at face value. Not understanding them...or challenging them. Certainly at the ideological level, anyways. Hence he doesn't stand a chance against these kinds of enemies. His attitudes make him a liability for the likely survival of the Republic against the lethal vipers we have so ill-advisedly nurtured.