One of the things you should fear when a political leader becomes unpopular, and his ideas have not only fallen out of favor with the public, but has proven to be catastrophically disasterous, is the increasing urge to gamble all or nothing in order to gain vindication. Seymour Hersh is reporting in the New Yorker than plans are being discussed to wage war with Iran. Nuclear war. From an anonymous source, he quotes that Bush sees "saving Iran is going to be his legacy." Once again, we have at the chess-table someone who has yet to master Connect Four. Of all the possible but diminishing options we have against Iran (thanks in part to the wonderful display of incompetence we gave the world in the run-up and execution of the Iraq War), the one option guarenteed to make things worse is a full-out attack.
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'cause we love peace and motherhood..."
Iran and Iraq are closely connected here in two important ways:
1) Right now: if we attack Iran, as the guy Hersh quotes says, southeastern Iraq will light up like a candle. We're fighting a slo-mo losing battle against the Sunni insurgency as it is; if we get the Shi'ites mad at us, it'll be time to have those helicopters ready to evacuate the Green Zone.
We'll lose Iraq, and we'll lose most of our residual support in the Arab Middle East as well. BIG strategic blunder. And it'll only be a temporary setback for Iraq, too.
2) Three years ago: our invasion of Iraq made explicit Iran's and North Korea's need for nukes. We created an environment where any country that the U.S. regards as hostile will want nukes if they can get 'em.
No matter what else was or wasn't true about the justifications for invading Iraq, this alone makes our invasion of Iraq the U.S.' biggest strategic blunder of the nuclear era.
Note to self: when writing about Iran and Iraq in the same short piece, proofread with more care than usual, especially with respect to n's and q's.