Another Blunder

Grim assessment of prosects in Iran courtesy of Spengler writing in Asia Times Online:

Washington had the opportunity at the turn of 2007 to isolate and neutralize the Mahmud Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran, but through stupidity and arrogance has made war the most probable outcome.

[...]

It is pointless to read the signals out of Washington to divine US intentions. A generous interpretation of the confusion on the Potomac would be that matters have become so complex that the moment Washington sends one sort of signal, it is compelled by the next turn of events to send a different one, to the point that no one can make sense of what the US wants to communicate. A less charitable interpretation would be that no one is in charge, and that different agencies of government are pursuing their own agendas without accountability to a central authority.

In the end it does not matter much which interpretation we choose, for Washington has done everything possible to destroy the prospects for a diplomatic solution. Whether it was possible to begin with, the historians will have to debate. For the time being, Bush has snatched war out of the jaws of peace.