Dubya Still Has It

If, like me, you've been worried that we were bowing to pressure to have talks with Iran, fear not.

Watching the pundits discuss our historic meeting
with Iran, you would have mostly heard despair at the notion that we have no
leverage in these talks, and so therefor why would Iran give on anything? Why
would they stop waging war against us in iraq if they have nothing to fear? To
all the experts in the media, the whole thing seemed like some grand puzzlement.
Was it just an attempt to appease the administration’s domestic critics who have
been chiding it for not engaging in diplomacy ( a vaguery if there ever was one
) with the world’s top terrorist? No one you heard from could really quite grasp
what was going on.

For some reason, no one told you that just 5 days before Monday’s
talks, an entire floating army, with nearly 20,000 men, comprising the world’s
largest naval strike force, led by the USS Nimitz and the USS Stennis, and also
comprising the largest U.S. Naval armada in the Persian Gulf since 2003, came
floating up unnanounced through the Straight of Hormuz, and rested right on
Iran’s back doorstep, guns pointed at them. The demonstration of leverage was
clear. And it also came on the exact date of the expiration of the 60 day grace
period the U.N. had granted Iran.

And it came just a few weeks after Vice President Dick Cheney had swept
through the region and delivered a very clear and pointed message to the Saudi
King Abdullah and others: George Bush has unequivocally decided to attack Iran’s
nuclear, military and economic infrastructure if they do not abandon their drive
for military nuclear capability. Plain and simple. Iran heard the message as
well, and although a lack of leverage may seem clear to America’s retired
military tv talking heads, it is not so clear to the government in
Tehran.

The message to both Iran and Syria is that if the talks in Baghdad fail,
the military option is ready to go.