Rhetorical escalation  

Glenn Greenwald speaks extensively here and here about the ominous mentions of Iran in Bush's speech the other day, and what the likelihood is that we'll be at war against that country soon. I don't have anything to add, but I certainly thing it's important to be monitoring.

It's so difficult to wade through all the commentating and figure out just what the administration's real ambitions are with respect to Iraq, Iran, etc. The David Brooks piece quoted down the page a bit here is troubling, and it makes me wonder if the whole escalation isn't all about finding a way to finesse blaming the Iraqis, which is grossly unfair given that we started this war. I myself am ambivalent about a pullout -- on the one hand, I'd favor a much larger escalation even now if I thought we were serious about bringing security to Iraq, but at the same time it's hard to imagine a situtaion in which I'd trust Bush with the task. Meanwhile the idea of political solution looks especially grim when you consider this account of what's going on at the State Department.